Psybertron Asks

Anyone wanting to hear Dawkins / Dennett / Ridley and others at the LSE in London Thursday 16th March Darwin Lecture. Has to make contact tomorrow 6th March 10 am – that’s 18:00 for me.

What does the BBC have to do to make its peace with the Chinese authorities ? Damn frustrating that I can’t link to the beeb from China (here in Shanghai) – I use the beeb for so many links to other sources, as well as their own content.

Given how open so much of China now seems, why is it the authorities still seem bent on tight control of “news” and media. You can understand their nervousness at western “excesses” and their desire to “manage” free-use of information with such a pace of change from a relatively primitive base, but it’s still hard to see, apart from cultural heritage, why the felt need to censor “bad news” from the state perspective. Here’s hoping it’s just a matter of pace and time.

Another consequence – Blogger Blogs, hosted on BlogSpot don’t make it into China either – thanks to the Google censorship connection no doubt.

Further to the last post, I’ve seen some interesting things about car selling in the last three weeks.

Initially I put my motor up for sale at the wrong price – right age, but no adjustment for the very high mileage (it’s probably the highest mileage VX in captivity in fact). Anyway in three weeks of web and paper adverts I only got one private buyer make contact – and he turned out to be a “tyre-kicker” not yet beyond deciding if and whether to buy any particular kind of sportscar – with no prior research on VX ownership, and no apparent funding.

Apart from that I had a 8 or 10 so-called matching agencies mail and call (many claiming to be different companies from very similar looking phone numbers BTW) – maybe you know the kind of thing “send us your money – we have customers ready and waiting for exactly the car you’re selling”. Er yeah, right. Why would any customer using a web-based car location service, not actually use the web just to search for used (pre-owned) cars for sale anyway ?

One “selling agent” who seems genuine, and doesn’t make such ludicrous claims is Danny Neville.

The other interesting contacts were two separate instances of the overseas buyer scam – seemingly originating in African countries. The deal is someone mails you, saying they are from abroad and says they are prepared to buy your car unseen, securing it for a little more than your asking price, and they will have one of their clients in your country send you a cheque, for that value plus the cost of shipping. When you get it (and the cheque has cleared into your own account, and you are still in posession of your car) you are asked to send the shipping fee (your money) to their agent. The scam is that having a cheque “clear” into your account, is no protection if the cheque itself is a forgery apparently. Apparently the bank clearing system that clears an apparently valid cheque into your account in about 3-days, doesn’t cover you for the fact the issuing bank can still reject it up to ten days later if they detect it’s a forgery. Despite the offer being too good to be true, for any sophisticated target to fall for it, the scam is very tempting because it’s hard to spot where the catch is, if you don’t know the clearing rules.

Interestingly having spotted the scams, I offerred a trading standards agency that I should go along with them up to the point of receiving the forged cheque – but they say even with that, it is impossible to track down and prosecute the perps. Oh well.

Since putting the car up again at the right price, things have been totally different. Within a few hours of putting up the new ad (and putting the car into the garage for it’s service and MoT certification, on the same day !) I had a dozen, maybe 15 different private and a few trade buyers make contact – most claiming cash or other secure finance at or near the asking price, and asking detailed questions that showed significant prior research on the model and condition for its age – all wanting to view ASAP. Between Tuesday and Friday (Saturday I left for Shanghai) I had to juggle daylight viewing appointments with getting the car back from the garage – and many new prospects I simply had to put off – in fact after all that hassle, the first guy to make contact, got the first viewing, and agreed to buy for cash. Deal done.

(Whilst that might give the impression it sold too cheap – the behaviour I couldn’t work out was that for three weeks previously the car had been advertised at about 15% higher price and not one person had even suggested an offer near the actual selling price – weird.)

Significant mental milestone in our upcoming move to US is that I’ve sold my pride and joy VX220.

Strange, last year whilst somewhat tentatively emigrating to Perth, Western Australia, I was actually trying to export the VX with us, but it proved too many snags bureacratically. Possibly one of several reasons that move didn’t work out. Seemed pointless thinking about taking the right-hand drive VX to the US, hence the need to sell. Having sold it, I guess that means the move is really on. No going back now. (At least the VX seems to have gone to a good home, the guy was looking for the specific age and colour for track racing events, and I’ll not forget the “wow” on his face when he saw her in the flesh the first time – first viewer bought her – promised to mail me some pictures of her in action.)

Juts a holding post for three items requiring comment on BBC Radio 4 Today …

Ann Atkins – Thought for the Day, excellent – less focus on progress / good being nothing less than winning

Cameron’s – “Dynamic with Stability” plea being ridiculed by Humphrey’s as “all things to all men”.

Bush’s – Chaos vs Progress fatuous question to Iraqi’s, Yeah sure George, “Iraqi’s” would prefer Chaos.

Interesting post from Sam Norton. A thoughtful Christian positioning on recent “blasphemy furies”. Amongst other things I was taken by this quote from Rene Girard.

“The invention of science is not the reason that there are no longer witch-hunts, but the fact that there are no longer witch-hunts is the reason that science has been invented. The scientific spirit … is a by-product of the profound action of the Gospel text.”

Seems difficult to reconcile that with the image of subversion of scientific texts dramatised in “The Name of the Rose” and assorted bonfires of the vanities – but yet again we are really talking about the difference between enlightened understanding of a belief system vs misguided things done it its name – not to mention subsequent misguided reactions to such belief systems based on misunderstanding it on the basis of those very things done in its name.

On a very brief reading of the Girard reference Sam provides, I can also feel a parallel between his avoidance of “taking offense” and Follett’s integration of differences (as opposed to resolution of differences). Not to mention Argyris’ avoidance of giving and receiving embarassment, and his distinction between “espoused theories” and “theories in use” and of course Brunsson’s “necessary hypocrisy” …. I could go on.

Also of great interest is Girard’s use of the word mimetism (mimetic) for “contagion”. Precisely the same mimesis etymological root as “memetic” – artificially re-constructed by Dawkins to rhyme audibly and visually with “genetic”. Mimicry, contagion, replication, infection. Inescapable. So much social-anthropology / evolutionary-psychology (pragmatic-reality, yes even “science”) is to be found in etymology.

Perhaps I should explain, why I’ve hardly posted recently.

I’ve barely had time to read anything except news stories for about two weeks. I’ve been active off-line and face-to-face in Cambridge with a group of people keen to make some real-world progress taking a discussion forum onto a new level, corresponding, preparing for, participating and documenting ideas coming out of that. Several entirely sleepless nights, but too soon to go public.

And I had a long weekend away – celebrating our birthday (Sylvia and I are consecutive days) the big “Five 0” in my case.

Oh, and we’ve been making preparations for a possible major domestic move, which I can’t say much more about yet.

Clear as mud, no ?

The change at Enlightened Caveman, morphing into Enlightened Living, from Chris Wilson’s personal blog to a new group blog, is somewhat clearer after a recent hiatus.

The Rev Sam Norton, fellow MoQer and Blogger has had his views on the unsustainablity of international food trading taken up by The Grauniad and The Beeb, not to mention Murdochvision.

In the same vein as sacramental Peyote and Funghi being used in enlightenment circles, here we have Amazonian herbal “Hoasca Tea”, containing DMT, being consumed in a ceremonial context notice.

The story is the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it’s use in response to an attempted federal ban.

Latest news on Google in China is about some bureaucratic hiccup, but the censorship story hits the headlines again …

Google, together with other major technology firms, has [] come under fire in the US for helping China censor the internet. Earlier this month, members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus said four US firms were putting profits before American principles of free speech.

[But] Google’s policy of telling users which pages are censored has also drawn the wrath of some [local] newspapers. “Does a business operating in China need to constantly tell customers that it’s abiding by the laws of the land?” asked the China Business Times, comparing Google to an uninvited guest.

The overt censorship actually reminds the community it is being censored by the laws of the land. Take it from there.