Author: Psybertron

Rationally Institutionalised Conspiracy Thinking

More Rationally Institutionalised Conspiratorial Motivation
Another link via Jorn from Common Dreams
Quote
Mr. Cheney also specialized in getting government contracts for the firm. During his five years as CEO, Halliburton got $2.3 billion in contracts, compared with $1.2 billion in the five years before he took over. Most of the work was done by Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root, the construction firm, thus reinstating a fine old Texas tradition. Brown & Root was Lyndon Johnson’s major money source: It was to LBJ what Enron was to George W.
Unquote
(Not news, in fact my thread is that there is nothing new under the sun in this line of apparent endemic conspiracy, but this particular example strikes a chord with me personally because of my longstanding relationship with one of B&R’s major competitors. I should explain – the “conspiratorial” references are not part of some conspiracy theory thesis against big business and the establishment – just part of a long series of threads of observation on relevant aspects of human nature – all will become clear.)

Reading Update

Speaking of my Reading List, as I was a little earlier.
Message to self – Also must restart the Nietzsche thread. Struggled with the biblical style of Zarathustra, but was taken with the contemporary notes by Ludovici, and need to follow-up via earlier Nietzsche works.
And speaking of literary style – I’m struggling with Melville again – the chapter (54) of “The Town-Ho’s Story” written as the narrative given verbally to “a lounging circle of Spanish friends” including Pedro and Sebastian – complete with asides, incidentals and interruptions in what is itself an aside from the main story – tough going to maintain the plot here. A 20 page chapter too, unlike the other 135 which are mostly between 3 or 6 pages each – roll on chapter 55.

Moby Dick & Francis Bacon

Reading list re-established !
Mentioned a month ago that I was reading Melville’s Moby Dick, and finding it enthralling so far. I got distracted however, and in the meantime read John Henry’s biography of Francis Bacon – Knowledge is Power, mentioned below and have since completed and enjoyed that (review to follow), together with dipping in and out of selected lectures from Poincare’s work, the selection edited by SJ Gould (much tougher going to find the relevance.) Poincare was a “geometer” – a perceiver of the big picture and claimant of sweeping generalisations – his arguments sound good on a rhetorical level, with exceptions ignored, but I’m not sure I can find much convincing rigour – I guess you have to be a mathematician. I think “maths-as-a-thing-of-beauty” is cool, I’ve certainly bought it for four decades, but it’s getting a bit overdone recently by the likes of Ian Stewart et al.

Struggled to get back into Melville, having put it to one side, but now back in full flow over one third through. I see now that my stumbling block was the series of chapters (scenes) on deck, written in the style of third person stage directions (unlike the rest in “I Ishmael” first person) which culminate in Ahab announcing in dramatic style his pursuit of Moby Dick to the assembled crew. One of the fascinating aspects for me is the degree to which the novel is a true story versus the fiction of Ahab and Moby Dick. For example, not only are Melville’s sea-faring credentials clear from the beginning, and the historical detail on the whaling industry, but in the sections explaining the credibility of Ahab’s attitude to Moby Dick, and that of the experienced crew, Melville cites in documentary fashion the cases of many “well-known individual whales” including names and ranks of the various ships and captains involved, with approximate dates. One of these chapters is entitled “Affidavit”, and Melville is clearly laying out supporting evidence – “Look, I’m not making this stuff up. Truth really is stranger than fiction.” If it’s just a literary ruse it’s very effective. I guess others must have researched all of this, (there is no end of books on Melville !) but I will just have to check-out this aspect – I’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Marvellous turns of phrase and humour throughout (too many subjects to mention here – race (colour), politics, communication, perception, motivation and madness to name a few.). Particularly enjoyed the passages describing the first lowering of the boats from the Pequod, and discovering the unexpected fourth boat (which I wont spoil by describing the circumstances), followed by the all action description of how Starbuck’s boat, with Ishmael, makes difficult and hazardous progress across the rising and falling waves, is upturned by the whale and ultimately smashed by being overrun by the mother ship in the grey squally conditions. You come out of it aching and sodden. By contrast their rescue and safe return to the Pequod is glossed over in a single, easily-overlooked statement. A little concentration pays off.

Some very interesting linguistic analysis too – not just the diverse historical and geographical sources of the words and styles, but artefacts like multiple threads of aliteration “crafted” in the one sentence and so on (don’t have the text to hand as I sit here, so I’ll dig out some quotes later – they’re worth it.)

Note the Hudson River analogy, when talking about [great] lakesmen – linked in Pirsig’s mind too ?

In view of some of my other threads majoring on “irrationality” and Catch-22 – the passages on Ahab’s “madness” when he returns from his original fateful encounter with Moby Dick, being “rationalised” by all who perceived it, drew lots of annotation for later use. As you can tell I’m getting a lot out of Moby Dick on many levels. (More than one drop of human blood per gallon of sperm oil at any rate.)

Kartoo – Visual Network Search Engine

Kartoo
A search engine that presents results as a network of interlinked graphic objects. Jorn considered it “mildly interesting”, but was clearly not impressed by the Flash content. (He picked up from the AI Forum). I reckon the idea is magic – in fact it exactly mirrors the Mind Map (or the Fuzzy Cognitive Map version of it) that I had in mind for organising research thoughts and references. Currently limited compared to (say) Google due to incomplete indexing of content out there, but very promising.

[I like the way that the links as well as the nodes are characterised – powerful concept – I wonder if they’re using RDF ? I wonder if the software is available as a tool to index and link any collection of information ?]

“Deliberate” Failure To See Facts

Deliberate failure to see the facts
(Another link brought to us by Robot Wisdom.) Those of you following the threads winding through this Blog, can’t fail to have noticed my “Emperors Suit of Clothes” thread. The in-built cultural tendencies to not see the obvious, even to justify not seeing it. This is part of, or at least closely related to my “Western Arrogance” thread, in terms of east vs west streams of philosophy and also parallels cock-up vs conspiracy theories. Formal management doctrines also recognise institutionalised “skilled incompetence” (ref Argyris et al.) in business decision making. These are facts that cannot be denied, but that’s the point, they are, always – Catch 22 again, again and again.

The linked article from Peggy Noonan is about the FBI failure over avoiding September 11th (surprise, surprise). It includes the line “FBI officials didn’t fail to connect the dots; they refused to see a pattern.” The refusal is not a malicious conspiracy, but a western conspiratorially-institutionalised cock-up. It gets better (worse if you like); it also contains the line “in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment” – the motivation straight out of Argyris, or my quoting of him in the earlier dissertation.

Wake up and smell the burning kerosene. Committees of moral men have been making immoral decisions since long before Ralph Nader pointed it out, and John Z Delorean heard him. Let’s not look for people to blame, let’s look at the information communication and decision making models with which we are comfortable in the west, and then move out of our comfort zone. Look east, or at least outside the rational positivist box.