![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 27 to 51 of 79. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on September 23, 2013, at 21:03:22
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 23, 2013, at 5:58:27
From:
>Poor Elizabeth Beckford. She was 70 years old and her crime was stealing 12lb of Gloucester cheese.
For that she could have hanged. Hundreds did in those violent, vengeful days, dancing "the Tyburn frisk" in the words of those who crammed around the gallows to watch this favourite spectator sport of the 18th century. But the state, in its mercy, saved her life - and gave her a punishment that some would see as worse than death.
>She was an unwilling passenger on a fleet of 11 ships that set out from England in 1787, the first of the convoys of the criminal underclass - as the ruling elite of Georgian England saw them - sent in chains to colonise new and dangerous shores on the other side of the world.
Those 736 sad souls on that pioneering voyage would establish a new world. Though she didn't know it - and the thought would have given her no consolation as she lay crammed with others in cell-like spaces below decks - Elizabeth was a founder member of a new country, Australia.
On Thursday, more than 200 years later, those who made those dreadful voyages - 163,000 in all over the years to come - are feted. Twenty-first century Australians celebrate their convict past, taking their lead from premier John Howard, a descendant of transported folk on both sides of his family.
The shipping and court registers of the banished have long lain in the National Archive in London. Now, in the knowledge that two million of us in Britain probably have blood links with Australia's criminal forebears, they have been put online for the hundreds of thousands of amateur genealogists in this country, eager to find out more about their roots.
The history they hide may not be pleasant. Elizabeth, incredibly, was not the oldest on that first ark of despair. Dorothy Handland, a dealer in rags and old clothes, was 82. How she was expected to contribute to empire-building in a virgin land whose hardships could only be guessed at is a mystery as great as the place she was being sent to.
But nonetheless she was among the waggon-loads of prisoners dragged down to the docks in Portsmouth from the sunless ship hulks at Woolwich where they had been held because the prisons were all full. They were dressed in rags, their faces pale from imprisonment, louse-ridden and thin as rakes from the slops they had been forced to live on.
Alongside the grannies were 120 other women, mostly young, like 22-year-old Elizabeth Powley. Penniless at home in Norfolk she had raided someone's kitchen for a few shillings' worth of bacon, flour and raisins and "24 ounces weight of butter valued 12d".
The death sentence on this starving girl was commuted and, as Robert Hughes, historian of the transportations, notes wryly in his book, The Fatal Shore, "she was sent to Australia, never to eat butter again".
At least the youngest of the "passengers", John Hudson, would never be pushed up another chimney. The nine-year-old sweep was condemned to seven years' exile for theft.
All on board were small-time criminals whose punishment, by the standards of later generations, in no degree fitted the crime. James Grace, 11, had taken some ribbon and a pair of silk stockings. John Wisehammer, 15, snatched some snuff from a shop counter in Gloucester.
For that, they would never see home again. The most extraordinary crime was that of William Francis, who stole a book about 'the flourishing state of the island of Tobago' from a gentleman in London. If he had had time to read it before he was caught, perhaps he had an inkling of what now lay ahead of him in a British colony far rawer than the West Indies.
There were no political prisoners, however, no rabble rousing, hay stackburning activists or trades unionists sentenced for their subversive activities, as some of today's anti-P*m Australians like to think. Nor, contrary to another common belief, were there any prostitutes as such - because prostitution was not a transportable offence at the time.
The women, however, were treated as whores. They arrived at the gangplank of their vessel, the Lady Penrhyn, almost naked and filthy, "in a situation that stamps them with infamy", according to the officer in command of the expedition, Captain Arthur Phillip.
He was appalled at their treatment by the magistrates who had sentenced them and the jailers who had held them. Whether he could guarantee them better lives at the end of their nine-month voyage was yet to be seen.
What they were about to embark on was the longest journey ever attempted by such a large group of people. Where they were going might as well have been the moon. Crewmen, let alone convicts, believed they would never see home or their loved ones again. "Oh my God," wrote one officer of Marines in his journal, "all my hopes are over of seeing my beloved wife and son."
As for the country they were going to, almost nothing was known except for the promise of Captain James Cook, its discoverer, that this 'New South Wales' as he chose to call it, was now British. But, to some observers of the hang 'em tendency, the thought that the felons might be better off than if they had languished in jail provoked bitter reproach. They were getting a new life, courtesy of the state, some argued. One balladeer wrote: They go to an island to take special charge Much warmer than Britain, and ten times as large. No customs-house duty, no freightage to pay, And tax-free they'll live when in Botany Bay.
Judging by the behaviour of some of the prisoners on that first voyage, the balladeer may have had a point. In truth, some of those on board acted in a way we associate with holidaying in Ibiza.
As they crossed into the tropics, and the hatches were taken off at night to let the prisoners breathe in some cool air, sex was rampant. The women prisoners were like stoats, according to the surgeon on one of the ships. They threw themselves at the sailors and Royal Marines in "promiscuous intercourse", he declared.
"Their desire to be with the men was so uncontrollable that neither shame - but, indeed, of this they had long lost sight - nor punishment could deter them."
Some were put in irons and others flogged, but the going-price for a quickie was just a tot of rum from a sailor's ration. Not surprisingly, the next problem for the captain was drunkenness among the same women.
The voyage rolled on seemingly endlessly with stops at Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town. The last leg was into the swells and troughs of almost uncharted waters of the Southern Seas.
The convicts were more crowded than ever because room had to be made for cows, horses, pigs and sheep for the future colony. Still the lechery continued. "There was never a more abandoned set of wretches collected in one place at any period than are now to be met within this ship," said the surgeon on the Lady Penrhyn.
Violent thunder squalls dumped tons of freezing water on the halfclothed convicts and dampened some of their ardour. The ladies fell on their knees praying.
And, finally, 252 days after leaving England they had made it to dry land as the ships anchored in Botany Bay. Forty-eight people had died - 40 of them convicts, five convicts' children. It was a tiny death rate compared with what they had achieved in that voyage.
"The sea had spared them," wrote Hughes. "Now they must survive on the unknown land."
It was a fortnight before enough tents and huts could be made ready and the female convicts could be disembarked. Sailors and women went mad with lust again.
That night a storm blew down the tents and rain lashed the camp. Male convicts pursued the women intent on raping them. Sailors from the ships, fuelled by rum, joined in.
"It is beyond my abilities to give a just description of the scene of debauchery and riot that ensued during the night," wrote the surgeon.
There was swearing, quarrelling, singing - "it was the first bush party in Australia," wrote Hughes, "and as the couples rutted between the rocks, their clothes slimy with red clay, the sexual history of colonial Australia may fairly said to have begun".
The next day the new governor harangued the convicts. He would stand no repetition of last night's orgy. Prisoners who tried to get into the women's tents would be shot. There was back-breaking work to do just to survive and if they did not work they would not eat, he told them.
The convicts had come to a hard country, as tough as any prison back home. They looked out on a territory that appeared fertile and lovely but was in fact arid. Beyond the landing grounds was bush, mile upon mile of it. There were Aborigines out there, too. Try to escape and they would spear you.
Even the Marine officers who ran the colony despaired. One wrote, that 'in the whole world there is not a worse country. All is so very barren and forbidding that it may with truth be said that here nature is reversed and is nearly worn out'. Surely, he added, the government would not think of sending any more people here.
But it did. The colony survived for its first year largely on rations it had brought with it, a diet of salt meat and leathery cakes baked on a shovel. Crops failed, illness struck down dozens of the convicts. But then supply ships arrived, and after that more convicts.
For some life was too harsh to continue. Dorothy Handland, now 84, who had endured so much already since her conviction back in England, hanged herself from a gum tree. She was Australia's first recorded suicide.
The convict colony clung on - just. There is no point in romanticising those days. Hughes's book makes clear that many of the convicts behaved badly, stealing each others' rations, and acting generally in the same dog-eat-dog fashion of the English slums they had come from.
On the other hand, they had little to cheer them. They worked on the land, hard, gruelling labour, often yoked together to haul timber in the absence of draught animals. Some preferred punishment to work.
The batch of women in the first fleet was not enough. More of marriageable age were needed and the next transport brought a boatload. The women convicts on the Lady Juliana had paired off with the crew as soon as they set sail from England. When she stopped in Tenerife and other ports along the way, a constant stream of male visitors came aboard, earning her a reputation as 'The Floating Brothel'.
On arrival in Australia they had money in their pockets, some a small fortune, for the half-starved convicts and sailors they were then married off to. Here was the "breeding stock", as one official in London put it, from which Australia would proudly grow.
Then land was granted to convicts who had served their time. There was an incentive at last. After 1792, four years after the first fleet first sailed into Botany Bay, the convict colony of New South Wales was self-supporting.
Back in England, the government hailed a victory. A worrying crime wave had been addressed. The criminal classes had been exiled and at no real cost.
That a whole continent would be conquered too was the unexpected bonus from those convict ships and their sorry cargoes.
Posted by Dr. Bob on September 24, 2013, at 16:43:28
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 23, 2013, at 21:03:22
> some peoples do manage subtractable resources in sustainable ways without the imposition of top-down government.
Hardin didn't say there had to be top-down government:
> > To many, the word coercion implies arbitrary decisions of distant and irresponsible bureaucrats; but this is not a necessary part of its meaning. The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
> You might like:
>
> > When analysts perceive the human beings they model as being trapped inside perverse situations, they then assume that other human beings external to those involved - scholars and public officials - are able to analyze the situation, ascertain why counterproductive outcomes are reached, and posit what changes in the rules-in-use will enable participants to improve outcomes. Then, external officials are expected to impose an optimal set of rules on those individuals involved. It is assumed that the momentum for change must come from outside the situation rather than from the self-reflection and creativity of those within a situation to restructure their own patterns of interaction.I'm the "external official" here, yes? Assumed to be able to analyze the situation and change the rules to improve outcomes?
> > dramatic incidents of overharvested resources had captured widespread attention, while studies by anthropologists, economic historians, engineers, philosophers, and political scientists of local governance of smaller to medium scale common-pool resources over long periods of time were *not* noticed by many theorists and public officials.
>
> Usenet is probably a case of one of them.
>
> Babble isn't.
>
> Yeah?Isn't what? Local governance of smaller to medium scale common-pool resources over a long period of time?
> > > You can send your criminals to Australia but ... Australians (now) aren't as criminal as they once were. Perhaps.
>
> > Becoming less criminal sounds like a good thing. How did that happen?> Then land was granted to convicts who had served their time. There was an incentive at last. After 1792, four years after the first fleet first sailed into Botany Bay, the convict colony of New South Wales was self-supporting.
Thanks for finding and sharing that story. Incentive was the key?
Bob
Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 5:57:17
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by Dr. Bob on September 24, 2013, at 16:43:28
> > some peoples do manage subtractable resources in sustainable ways without the imposition of top-down government.
> Hardin didn't say there had to be top-down government
You are right, he didn't. In fact he acknowledges problems with this attempt at solution.
Ostrom characterizes much of the work since Hardin as thinking that this is the solution to tragedy of the commons situations, though. Whether she is setting up a straw man, or whether this is the case, this seems to be her target.> The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
But you don't want to put certain moderating policies to the vote.
> I'm the "external official" here, yes? Assumed to be able to analyze the situation and change the rules to improve outcomes?
You are if anyone is. I'm not entirely convinced you are an 'external official', though. I said more about this on admin.
> Isn't what? Local governance of smaller to medium scale common-pool resources over a long period of time?
That was my thought, yes. Babble isn't an example of unmoderated. I guess I was thinking that unmoderated was locally governed (social norms) rather than their being official moderation / official rules / sanctions.
> > Then land was granted to convicts who had served their time. There was an incentive at last. After 1792, four years after the first fleet first sailed into Botany Bay, the convict colony of New South Wales was self-supporting.
> Thanks for finding and sharing that story. Incentive was the key?I guess that is the way they tell the story. Being granted / Taking ownership.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 6:48:44
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 5:57:17
I feel like the topic has been changed somewhat... I feel that some people DO suffer in current commons-type situations because they have MORE of a social conscience. These might be situations that are objectively seen to be 'working'. Perhaps they might even be cases that Ostrom would consider 'successfully managed'. But they might be managed such that the sensitive individuals with social conscience are in fact carrying more of the load. Is such a situation sustainable? People have managed to successfully exploit others over considerable periods of time...
Most of the time I opt out of co-operative activity. Because I don't trust my ability to objectively assess the nature of my contribution. I think that I've f*ck*d up the math somehow... That I've calculated things wrong...
But really...
For much of my life...
People have guilt tripped me into contributing much more than my share. Because they can. Because it has a short term pay-off for them. Of course I avoid them (everyone) where possible because the stress of the social interaction (the constant guilt of feeling like a selfish individual) makes it unpleasant for me. But that is a longer term thing that doesn't really feature into their calculus.
It creates problems for me because it means I've learned to avoid co-operative activity - and I've had some fairer people make better offers since. And I've dropped the ball... Because of my past... And then these present people think that I'm un-co-operative... I think they get it is more of a 'can't' than my purposely trying to cheat them... But I need to turn it into a 'can' or I write myself off.
It is hard.
People here... They want me to lead. They keep trying to do stupid things. At the moment they are trying to put us on dishwashing detergent rations. That is a matter of basic food hygene (I've brought dishwashing detergent for our house a couple times and we don't go through more than $2 not-bulk supermarket purchase per week - we do not need to be put on f*ck*ng rations). SOMEONE is supposed to STAND UP...
Someone... Can't do their f*ck*ng job of filling up the detergent properly. Could they be given a simpler job? I really don't think that is possible... I suppose the 4 day time delay might be excusable somehow... But then only filling it half way?
Someone really is attention starved...
I don't know what the f*ck to say.
On this occasion: I opt out. I buy my own detergent now. I have my own dishes, too (so I don't get the household sick virus from unwashed dishes ever again).
Must the common people live like pigs?
Really?
No. F*ck*ng. Way.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 6:55:29
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 6:48:44
Because: I can manage myself.
I can buy 3 liters of milk. Be careful to keep it properly chilled, and it will last me 7 days.
But if I put it in the fridge here, it will not last 7 days.
Firstly, it will go off sooner, because someone will put it out on the table for hours at a time so a big group of people can use it for their cuppas.
Secondly, it will simply get used up sooner than 7 days.
Here is an (unconscious) strategy. Buy 1 liter of milk. Take a bit out. Leave it alone and use someone elses (my) milk. Eventually someone else (me) will throw out all the half empty bottles of rotten milk (so it doesn't explode on her stuff). Then... Just keep using her milk.
So I supply milk to the house.
Or: I don't get milk.
Tragedy of the commons.
We must all live like pigs.
I must manage everyone: I am not allowed to manage myself.
We must all live like pigs.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 17:58:50
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 6:55:29
And the problem is that I don't want to manage everyone.
Why should I?
There are people who are *being paid* to manage us. That is their *formal job* that they *love very much* for all the *kudos* it grants them. For the people *sucking up* to get *sh*t they don't even need* like a flat to themself that they can turn into the noisiest f*ck*ng hub of a social center in the whole damned place.
Most of the people here don't even pay rent for the jobs they are meant to f*ck*ng do. Jobs like filling up the dishwashing detergent.
I pay rent (regularly and reliably) so I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS SH*T.
Only I do have to worry because once again (surprise surprise) the very people whose job it is to look after others... Who are paid to look after others... Couldn't even manage themselves. Let alone co-ordinate the actions of a number of people.
This is a f*ck*ng joke. Once again.And people wonder what it is that I like about student accommodation. I have seen some stupid sh*t in student accommodation, oh yes indeed, I have. But I don't have to deal with sh*t like people living sub World Health Organization Standards (hey, maybe if you kept the house at habitable living temperature you wouldn't get / pass on sickness quite the way you do and it might even add years to your life expectancy) or not filling up dishwashing detergent. We even typically have lockable food storage space because people know full well that the significant majority of people in this world cannot be trusted to contribute appropriately so you do in fact NEED TO PROTECT THOSE WITH SOCIAL CONSCIENCE.
I do have problems with math and suspect this is the origin, now. Trouble assessing portion sizes and the like because of people trying to have me on. Constantly. Nobody was smart enough to figure out the standard 'fair' strategies (you cut I choose). Bullies grabbed, anyway. You cried... Everyone laughed at you.
I am glad I came back because it will help me come to peace with my childhood. Of course... The final part of acceptance will only come from my getting the f*ck away, again. But I did of course have to come back.
I DO want to help. But... What do I need to do in order to actually help rather than contribute to the problem (as most people seem to be doing - who are supposed to be 'helping').
?
(Of course I'm being unfair. They help in a bunch of other ways. Just not being a drunken lout is being a good influence etc. While the alchohol ban rule (for example) is f*ck*ng annoying (what I would give to turn up some music, open a bottle of wine, and ENJOY cooking a meal) without it... This place would be full of a bunch of obnoxious drunken people. Given the alternative.
I hate my life sometimes. Why did I have to be born?
Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 19:22:07
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 17:58:50
An outsider could be relatively objective. Because sometimes it is hard to be objective (to do the calculus properly) when you are enmeshed in some way.
Like the idea that the fairest division of wealth etc would be decided by a group of people who had been hypnotised or something so they didn't know *who they would be* / what position in society they would take up. So they would try and make it so that things were fair for all... And that the worst off wasn't too badly off in case that worst off individual turned out to be them.
I think I could feel a lot more compassionately and objectively about what might be good to solve this tragedy of the commons if:
1) I wasn't sick.
2) I knew my dishes were hygenically clean.And so on. Because I know what I need to do is take a deep f*ck*ng breath and model 'appropriate use of emotional responses' to others (which in fact comes f*ck*ng hard for me) in order to take several hours out of my life to chat to everyone on the whole f*ck*ng complex... To track down what teh f*ck is going on with the dishwashing detergent and sort that sh*t out. Why? Because nobody else is capable. How do I know that? Because they haven't done it already and because: They all got sick. Which is (of course) not in their interests at all.
So: I think that sometimes what is in fact needed or helpful is something like the view from nowhere or the objective outsider position.
I think the idea of mutual benefit is important re: co-operation. I think that people do not do things that they know to be good for themself in part because they feel bad for not sharing and in part because they feel that they are being taken advantage of when they do share. Some people can't reciprocate (they can't do the calculus or something). Some people won't. Because they can get away with it.
I think the can't / won't thing is very very very f*ck*ng important in terms of our help vs let f*ck*ng die intuitions...
E.g., If someone has a bad back so they can't sit at their office desk and work they are off sick... Then we discover them sitting on their couch all day watching the cricket we have the urge to punish them for having us on. But if someone has a bad back so they can't sit in their office desk and work they are off sick... Then we discover they can't get in their car and drive to the golf course (their favourite activity in the world) because their back hurts too much when they sit... We have rather more sympathy.
Something about tracking pay-off structures.
here is teh crucial bit: It doesn't rely on judgement of intent.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 19:33:56
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 19:22:07
The version of the tragedy of commons that I like (for my purposes) is the one where the selfish strategy is ultimately self-defeating in that it results in everyone (including the selfish individual) being worse off.
The version of psychopathy I like is the one where psychopaths turn out to have problems making long term plans (so some aspect of their rationality is in fact in question).
Emotions: might be mechanisms for solving the commitment problem.
the commitment problem:
I kidnap you. I let you see my face. I have a change in heart and don't want to kill you anymore. You say 'if you let me go I won't tell the police on you - I promise'. Why should I believe you? It is in your best interests to have me believe you now and then tell the police on me later? I conclude that I must kill you.
One solution to the commitment problem is for you to give me something as collatoral for later. Something I could use to blackmail you later, basically. Then you later have some incentive to keep your promise.
Or: You have a two hundred dollar briefcase... I could steal it. You could prosecute me but it would cost you three hundred dollars in court costs. I conclude that you are rational: You won't prosecute me. But instead I know you will become so f*ck*ng mad at my stealing your property that you will prosecute me even at considerable cost to yourself. This acts as a sufficient deterrant to me.
Like... The dishwashing liquid. It isnt' about the cost, obviously. Each and every one of us can afford to buy dishwashing liquid. It isn't about that.
Someone needs to take the time to herd the f*ck*ng people. Time... Time... Tick f*ck*ng tick.
I just want a quiet place where I can work on my thesis.
No... You selfish bitch.
pay attention to us.
Why can't people just organize themselves? Instead of buying masses of sh*t that nobody wants to eat and putting it in the fridge where nobody will eat it so it rots... Why can't they just buy whatever it is that they want to eat and eat that?
Then they might notice that they can share the costs with someone else... And since they know in fact how long whatever it is lasts them they have some indicator of whether they are contributing honestly or not.
Collaborating (to mutual benefit) is HARDER than going it alone, I reckon. Because of having to police teh cheaters.
Some cultures... Michelangelo was painting the cistene chapel... While certain other people were singing together in grass skirts.
I wonder why?
I wonder what mechanisms there are?
Posted by Dr. Bob on September 26, 2013, at 1:32:18
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 25, 2013, at 6:48:44
> > Incentive was the key?
>
> I guess that is the way they tell the story. Being granted / Taking ownership.I wonder what ownership here might look like.
--
> I feel that some people DO suffer in current commons-type situations because they have MORE of a social conscience. These might be situations that are objectively seen to be 'working'. Perhaps they might even be cases that Ostrom would consider 'successfully managed'. But they might be managed such that the sensitive individuals with social conscience are in fact carrying more of the load. Is such a situation sustainable? People have managed to successfully exploit others over considerable periods of time...
Sustainable is different than just:
> > An alternative to the commons need not be perfectly just to be preferable. With real estate and other material goods, the alternative we have chosen is the institution of private property coupled with legal inheritance. Is this system perfectly just? ... We must admit that our legal system of private property plus inheritance is unjust--but we put up with it because we are not convinced, at the moment, that anyone has invented a better system. The alternative of the commons is too horrifying to contemplate. Injustice is preferable to total ruin.
Bob
Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2013, at 17:45:13
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by Dr. Bob on September 26, 2013, at 1:32:18
i am glad you are here. thank you.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2013, at 18:10:43
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by Dr. Bob on September 26, 2013, at 1:32:18
I don't know about this the commons = total ruin business. Hobbes state of nature, or whatever.
I suppose it is more likely to be experienced as such by those who profit from the current system. For those who are screwed over by the current system... What would the difference be?
The loss of a dream?
I suppose I do have some security, in a sense, thinking that one day I will in fact have enough money coming in to have my very own place where I can lock the door and ignore the whole wide world. Without that dream... I suppose I really would despair. And... It isn't a winning the lottery kind of dream, even. It seems realistic. Sort of. Sometimes.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a just system that is sustainable. Or if those ends are opposed in some way.
I just can't stop thinking about 'brave new world' these days. With the 'different kinds' of babies... I need to read it again... The idea... That people might genuinely be happiest in different kinds of settings / with different things in life... Such that everyone could have what they needed / wanted... To a greater extent than now, at any rate.
Of course the later half of the book went in a different direction and it got all moralistic and blah... But back to the interesting idea in the first half of the book...
I did come to Babble in part specifically because you were here. I had a brief experience with a borderline personality message board that was moderated by consumers and while they were mostly very good sometimes... I don't agree with all your decisions... But I suppose you seem to be the lesser of all evils. Perhaps it is something to do with fit (some people like Grohol, for instance. I see him do some very kind things and respect him for that, but I also think he is a bit of an idiot).
I'm sure we could run the boards better than you sometimes... But I don't think we could consistently do so. And... Perhaps consistency is important. Sometimes. I don't know. I don't think it would hurt for you to listen to twinleaf (and others) more about the blocks. But then 10... I don't know...
Posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2013, at 20:47:55
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2013, at 18:10:43
> but I also think he is a bit of an idiot
actually that isn't true. it is more that it is relatively easy to wind him up.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 27, 2013, at 19:51:59
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2013, at 20:47:55
> > but I also think he is a bit of an idiot
> actually that isn't true. it is more that it is relatively easy to wind him up.not that i test people or anything... but i don't feel that he is a very safe person to be around me when i'm having a lot of trouble with control.
i mean... i don't know that you are, either. but you are one of the safest. maybe we have complimentary pathology.
what is behind your defenses, i wonder?
do you get that dispersal feeling?
plastination for the win?
the trouble is... well... we just know what is going to happen with that. all these bodies (and parts of bodies) preserved (forever?) in plastic. if i keep up my training i think i'd make nice horizontal sections... there is going to be all this people litter. what are we going to do with all these plastic corpses? it is going to become a big f*ck*ng problem... i suppose we will ship them to space.
i think i might like that. being a plastic missile. intertia. space. i thought i would like space... but... maybe a little part is a little scared of that too...
i think death isn't so freaky because we don't know what will happen... it is more that of any of the things that could possibly be true of it... none of them seem particularly appealing.
Posted by alexandra_k on September 27, 2013, at 21:00:55
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by Dr. Bob on September 26, 2013, at 1:32:18
> > > Incentive was the key?
> > I guess that is the way they tell the story. Being granted / Taking ownership.
> I wonder what ownership here might look like.I guess we need to distinguish between the internet as commons and Babble as commons. I suspect that the internet is more of a commons and Babble is more your private property / your government.
I'm not sure that Babble can be viewed as a commons with your being in control of it.
I think...
We need to allow that social norms / customs spontaneously arise from groups of peoples - the way that common language does. Commons are governed, in a sense. It is just about WHO has control... About... Whether that control mechanism is... Sensitive to shorter vs longer term interests. Sensitive to the needs of all equally vs more sensitive to the needs of some compared to the needs of others. Etc. There are different ways different societies come down on things like that.
I'm starting to think that relying too much on genetic inheritance rather than merit isn't a strategy that works out particularly well... I mean... It served England for a while, but then even England had to adapt to that, rather (the monarchy is figure head these day, really). I think part of the issue with Maaori culture is that roles in society are meant to be determined by birth right... So (for example) the eldest boy is the speaker... And (when all goes well) he takes into account the little voices of others (perhaps those with brains etc) in his ear... But if you get a particularly stupid / incompetent one... You f*ck over a lot of people who rely on him to speak and advocate on their behalf... A better system would be to elect the person most competent to represent the people...
There are problems currently with women not having speaking rights on the Marae... Why would a woman choose to stay with her tribe and be passed over / dismissed when she can (for example) perform exceedingly well in a court of law (for instance)? Why have any kind of loyalty to a tribe who would dismiss / pass you over so?
(I don't know that that actually does happen - but if it did...)
(We have been told to not expect all students to speak up in front of other in tutorial groups because not all of them have been given the role of speaker. But my problem is: Why not train them all to speak and then pick the best ones to represent? Why decide upon birth who must do what? How does that result in the *best speakers*?)
Adapt... Or perish...
A leader turned up for us today. We will see... Part of the issue (for me) is that I just want to be left to do my thing... But... In the interests of the whole anthropology thing... It will be good for me... She comes bearing gifts for all... Wonderful things like dishwashing detergent... I will need to find the place between doing my own thing and doing some mental f*ck*ng mathematics...
Sigh.
These people (people like these) took me into their care when I was 14 years old. Nobody would look after me (get me away from my mother) and... They did. Even though I hated every minute of it (sort of) people people people masses of people... Was an antidote to just me/mom. And they are light-hearted... Whereas I am intense and roundandroundandround in my head...
So...
Smack me on the head sometimes for not being appropriately humble.
I got reading through the archives... And they are shrinking, yeah. A lot less posts than there used to be. How come?
Partly... I suspect the people who used to post here got better. Like Deneb... They have other things to be engaged in that aren't focused around 'mental health'. Partly... I think that you can find things that you get from here distributed around other parts of the internet. Sometimes in the most unlikely of places. I developed some wonderful friendships (where we talked about all kinds of intimate stuff - worked through body image issues and feelings of inferiority etc etc) in the most unlikely of places... this internet forum that was initially set up for people to chat to each other about bodybuilding steroids, of all things...
i think part of it is the decentralization of power thing. the rise of allied health. you are old school in a way... authoritarian... most people don't like that... the would rather take their chances with the commons... and bail to a different group if they don't like what they see. people take people with them... i lost t nation when a bunch of girls objected to the sexualization of women... this whole thing of them posting half naked pictures of their progress then taking offense as people posted 'i'd hit it' etc... they moved to google circles or whatever it is... i didn't go with... but i think people are doing that, more... the internet is the commons... and people set up temporary tents...
i am surprised that there aren't more people like me... i don't know why there aren't. why they aren't still here. i don't know. i need this place, though. i need it to still be here. thank you for not shutting it down and for responding sometimes. everybody here helps me feel less alone. but me... my issues... it means a great deal to me that you are.
Posted by Dr. Bob on September 28, 2013, at 23:54:48
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 26, 2013, at 17:45:13
> i am glad you are here. thank you.
Likewise,
Bob
Posted by alexandra_k on September 29, 2013, at 23:10:47
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by Dr. Bob on September 28, 2013, at 23:54:48
> > i am glad you are here. thank you.
>
> Likewise,
>
> Bobgood. you have to be like me. and you have to be wise. i found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxrtq7QJKXw
i don't say this lightly... if i've ever met a genius, there he is. it helped to see... that interaction. he's so very strong in a lot of ways. disciplined. socially skilled. kind. but there is of course a fragility.
i do wonder if everyone has the same thing underneath it all. i don't see what good comes of it. i guess people are like onions. what good comes of peeling back all those layers of defenses to discover... that. that god awful feeling. what good comes of it? is it about our realizing that we are just a bundle of defenses or something like that so why not (more) rationally choose them rather than just... living them out. or whatever.
but then i guess my feeling comes from freeze / startle. and not everybodies does... yours can be different. i don't mind. everybody has something. it is what makes us human, i guess. i feel... sad. i wish i was in hospital. i just want to curl up. and for people to be like 'its okay, you just curl up there for however long you need'. and in probably a month or something... i'll be sick of it and wanting to go out and live my life. and... i would have got a nice chunk of work done.
people reckon i'm institutionalised. i guess i am. people say it like it is a bad thing.
i wonder... i wonder why jail has never really had any appeal to me?
Posted by Dr. Bob on September 29, 2013, at 23:31:19
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 29, 2013, at 23:10:47
Posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 0:38:06
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 29, 2013, at 23:10:47
Posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 0:38:34
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 0:38:06
ty
Posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 4:40:49
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 0:38:34
[McWilliams, Nancy, (2006)'Some thoughts about schizoid dynamics' Psychoanalytic Review. 93:1 p.1-24.]
:-)
Posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 17:54:59
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 4:40:49
Oops about the link. This seems to be the best I can do:
McWilliams, Nancy, (2006)'Some thoughts about schizoid dynamics' Psychoanalytic Review. 93:1 p.1-24.
(If you could remove the other link / replace it with the above reference I'd be grateful)
So... Perhaps that is where the introverts went. Perhaps the 'gifted' people, too (thinking of that in line with Dabrowski's over excitabilities).
McWilliams reads like... Someone on the outside looking in. Doing a good job of it for someone on the outside looking in. But someone on the outside looking in, regardless. Mostly because... There are things you wouldn't think to remark upon or notice or say unless you were on the outside. What is remarkable of cringing away from a noisy, crowded situation? One where you can't hear yourself think? It is only when you realize that certain other people are attracted...
My living situation is a bit better now with the new person having moved in. The leader. Part of it is about validation of certain things being odd or weird or annoying... Like with the dishwashing detergent. And she just sort of claps her hands together and sorts it out. No fuss. Like... The way it is supposed to be done. By someone whose job it is. And there we go. And partly it is about... Her not being a dumb-*ss. The people I am living with are lovely... But they are not the smartest. The 19 year old is going on 13 and, well... The others aren't much further ahead in intellectual or emotional years (I'm not sure why people get it into their heads that if they are dumb and can't tolerate being alone it means they have admirable social skills)... It just means... I can't even have a light hearted conversation and have people follow along half the time... But things are a bit better now... Validating in some way. And she is big and loud and salient... But she has that centered calmness which makes the loud okay. Unobtrusive. And there it is.
I'm going to go in a bit... Get my sh*t together... Collect myself up and go to the gym... I'm going to squat 1x5@20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 5x5@42.5. And I'm going to mess around with my handstand / back bridge / animal walks. Then I'm going to come home... Have a nice hot shower... Make coffee... And spend 50 minutes on my thesis. 10 minute break for more coffee... And then another 50 minutes. And then I'll see how I feel... The point being... I'm going to get out of bed today. And I'm going to get a chunk of work.
I'm very close to sending off more stuff... I think that is why I've collapsed rather. Because I KNOW 'It isn't finished yet. What is the point of all this stuff you have said? What is your argument for that point?' Why do I feel like I'm worthless if it isn't all done even before I start? Wasting peoples time... It isn't supposed to freeze me. Just make me appropriately respectful of it. But I don't quite understand to get them work of the appropriate standard at the appropriate time. I... Don't trust myself. Which makes me... Untrustworthy. :-( I suck. And people have told him to be careful with me - and he IS being. I mean, really, he really really is. So now it is all my insecurites and messed upness in my head. I know that. But it doesn't help me out sometimes.
That article helped. And... Sometimes... I guess sometimes what I need is to know that I really really can just stay there curled up... And the nurses aren't all like 'there she goes manipulating people again' or whatever... And so when I get up to go to the bathroom people are like 'see, she's okay' or whatever. Sometimes I just need the space to collapse. And then I don't need to be collapsed. It is that awful stuck feeling you get of holding on just a little bit because you can't properly collapse... That draws teh whole f*ck*ng thing out. Perhaps. I think. ANyway... Work today... Work today... I'll send stuff soon and then this will lift... And then ti will be time for round 3...
Posted by alexandra_k on October 1, 2013, at 17:40:19
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on September 30, 2013, at 17:54:59
on the one hand 'it is always something'. i hear that, loud and clear. 'it is always something with you'. 'if it isn't one thing it is another'. i don't suppose it is any voice i've internalised from the outside. just like how my 'good' voice isn't any particular voice i've internalised. it is more a curious blend of different aspects that i've simply picked up over the years. i get this other voice too. no i don't think cbt will help. but thanks for asking.
so yesterday afternoon sometime a girl rocked up. and so they have put her in the room next to me because that is the only room they have left now. only it is not just her. there are two girls in there. and they are trying to be quiet. i can hear them trying to be quiet. i can hear them say things like 'hey lets be quiet' and stuff. and they are talking quietly. incessantly. they don't stop.
half past twelve i moved into the lounge to get sleep. moved back around six as people started to wake up and being noisy... then they started up again around eight. noise noise constant stream of noise. i can't hear myself think. all i do is hear their innane prattle about whatever the f*ck they are talking about... massive thought interrupting device.
so i'm sleep deprived... and i'm feeling angry. and i'm feeling violated and invaded. and who knows whether they have moved in permanently or what. and i start fantisising about getting a gun and shooting them because i think that is what it would take to make them stop (I would never - but i do feel extremely angry).
and hyper... from lack of sleep. my mind is going nine hundred billion miles an hour and anyone talking makes me really really really f*ck*ng mad. i walked into the park before. and there are people. mostly in pairs. chatting and talking. and i manage to get myself positioned into the quietest place there is... then along come some really f*ck*ng noisy people and they scan around for where to put themselves.... and they put themselves right next to me. who has work spread out all around who is obviously TRYING TO THINK. they put themselves their noisy f*ck*ng selves right up as close to me... when there is the whole f*ck*ng park. of course they do. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS????? and if i say something... like 'oh hey, if you want to listen to music how about you get some headphones' to the person listening (quietly!) to music on their phone... or 'i'm sorry is my working getting in the way of your talking' to people who come righ tup next to me (of course they do!) in the library... people look at me and... smirk. like they are teasing me or something. like they are funny.
and i start thinking about peeling off part of their skin one day at a time with a potato peeler or something... something... so they understood how i really felt about tehir presence.
what the f*ck is wrong with me?
Posted by alexandra_k on October 1, 2013, at 23:24:24
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on October 1, 2013, at 17:40:19
On the good side it motivated me to check out a particular street that basically seems full of student accommodation tower blocks. For both of the universities and then ones that are privately owned. All have reception so I could just go in and ask to take a look...
There was one particular building that the accommodation advisor was trying to encourage me to check out. I think because if I sign a 12 month lease I can (only just) afford a studio room. Otherwise... It is shared apartment kind of a set-up with communal bathroom / kitchen between 2 or 4 or 6 or... In some instances a whole floor of like 12 or something...
The building managers seemed keen to show me nicer options, at any rate. Bigger rooms with less people. And the rates were cheaper than they were advertising online. I guess they are trying to make a buck from short-term international students where possible...
Anyway... I applied for a studio apartment room that I was told would be available from mid-November. Because the accommodation adviser lady was suggesting it - she seemed to think I might (perhaps) even prefer it to university accom since I can't afford a studio room in university accom. Apparently we hear back about university accom mid-october... So hopefully I can figure it out... Since I'll need to sign a 12 month contract to get the studio room at the rate that is affordable...
There were lots of rooms that are about as cheap as what I've got now. Smaller, yes. But... I didn't see anybody hanging about the place. Seemed empty during the day. I guess because people are actually in class or whatever... The problem with where I'm living is that people just hang about at home all the time... Making their f*ck*ng noises...
I suppose they might get noisy in the evenings...
I... Can always go back and check, I suppose. I wonder if we are close enough to campus to pick up their wireless...
Would you believe I am in the public library and this guy has been going around for the last 5 minutes ringing this f*ck*ng loud obnoxious bell because... They are going to be closing in 15 minutes. Am I really the only person who thinks that there is something wrong with this and there must be a better way? Why doesn't it seem to bother anybody else?
Posted by alexandra_k on October 10, 2013, at 1:45:55
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on October 1, 2013, at 23:24:24
I found this youtube clip of stephen j gould. the interviewer asked him how he managed to be so productive. i mean, the guy churned out an article every month and a book (as a compiled collection of articles) every year or so over years...
he said his secret was that you had to do it for yourself. that you couldn't do it for the fame. because if you did it for the fame then there would be a certain point where you would realize that you were famous and then you would stop. that you had to do it for yourself.
i think i have a pretty good grip on internal motivation. when it comes to seeking out information. reading. researching. when it comes to things like squats. i am having trouble getting it for my writing, though. mostly... i feel like coughing up writing is a chore. it isn't done for me. it is done to satisfy funding bodies etc. i... don't see how it is something that helps me.
so... what am i missing?
if i could get this... it would solve everything...
there is something else, too... i have been reading... and finding all kinds of things... and i've been thinking about this difference between 'pop stuff' (i guess it is stuff that i'd be a little... embarrassed?... to reference) and 'proper serious academic stuff' (done by certain people and / or people of certain positions and / or certain publishers)... and... what is the difference?
i think part of the difference is meant to be 'scholarly' vs 'sloppy'. what is that difference? i guess more scholarly stuff summarizes a lot... like how i'm just learning about the considerable value of a really well done literature review. how it manages to usefully chunk a whole heap of stuff... how it does a lot of work for you... saves you a whole bunch of time... scholarly books cover a lot of ground in that way... summarizing whole fields... and in some instances the progression of a certain line of research spanning multiple fields... that is just work. it takes work to read and to understand what is often complicated and to summarize accurately at the appropriate level of detail.
what is in doing that for me?
i guess it is in all the stuff you leave out... the whole process of doing that... you learn... heaps. heaps. much more than if you just read the stuff faster and didn't properly comprehension check. maybe that is what writing does. keeps you more honest. note to self: if you REALLY want to understand / know... this is the way.
part of the difference... i'm starting to see... is in the use of analogy. it is relatively easy to make cursory analogies. or to make sweeping ones. it is something else entirely to slow things up. each point of similarity - instead of noting a similarity and moving on really examining it. similar exactly how - dissimilar exactly how? i guess... coming closer to understanding the thing on its own terms rather than trying to extend / apply a different category to it. e.g., i found this book on autism and it was saying that the issue was one of bandwidth limitations like a slow internet connection for social skills. in one way... it is an illuminating metaphor. it got a wonderful smile out of me. it conjured up all kinds of images. and then the analogy got extended in all kinds of interesting and clever ways... but... uh... while it was delightful to read... uh... i'm not sure i was really coming to learn about autism.
i found this other book that was trying to integrate evolution, development, cultural change, and something else i forget... with 7 principles... ditto. creating and nourishing the brain somehow... but,uh, how much was actually learned about any of those fields? i'm not entirely convinced...
the dry boring stuff is... uh... more informative. i guess.
intellectual honesty. i think that is tied up...
and of course things seem clear until you try and write up what was supposed to be so very clear. then things start to seem confused. not so clear after all. intellectual honesty, again. this is what makes writing valuable and worthwhile. the idea is that the writing process reveals the unclarity that was present. this is why you write for you. to come to a better understanding. i need to grasp this properly.
i'm... lazy. mentally lazy. sigh. without external things like tests / assessments / the prospects of an A+... sigh. do it for me... i get it for squats. why not this? come back to me...
Posted by alexandra_k on October 10, 2013, at 1:57:21
In reply to internal motivation, posted by alexandra_k on October 10, 2013, at 1:45:55
the summarizing...
one highly respectable person once told me that that was half of what we do.
i'm seeing that now... and how if you do it right, you need never do it again. i see articles and books by certain people... and they have little summary speels of this and that and they just repeat the summary speel they have already written. if you are involved in a certain line of research then the summary speel probably gets updated every year or so in light of more recent developments... maybe you end up with more condensed / expanded versions for different purposes...
over time you can accumulate fields / research groups / people's contributions / points people have made on the significance or importance of this or that and the dangers of these other things over there...
and of course you develop your own take on the importance / significance of this or that finding for this or that theoretical point...
but it is about connecting with something greater than yourself. being a part of something. incorporating aspects of others. hoping others go on to incorporate aspects of you...
i do have a lot of... confusions. something along the lines of 3/4 understandings... i guess... i should have internal motivation to summarize for myself... see the full picture. then (and only then) once the summary is out...
one gets to stand back from it.
and...
THINK.
then what one thinks might actually matter.
only... one can get lost in trying to do a literature review properly... even a book review...
something something about a map that was so accurate and highly detailed you couldn't unroll it for fear of upsetting the farmers.
sigh.
whatever is to become of me?
(i suspect there is some reciprocal process between standing back and thinking (using that thinking to inform which aspects of the summary are important) and writing the summary (and using that to inform the thinking part of the process)
round and f*ck*ng round.
intrinsic value. f*ck yeah.
spinning circles. seems to me.
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