[!@#$%!]

don't know yet. trying to read something today. and play games. and do nothing.

hmmmm....

[LifeDistortion]

 

Finishing the(so far)trilogy.

[Severian]

 

My father is a huge Updike fan. He's read the entire "Rabbit" collection multiple times. Normally, I like to distance myself from my father when it comes to literature of choice (obsessed with the Algonquin Round Table and James Thurber/New Yorker society, he's become quite the insufferable cosmopolitan know-it-all, to the extreme chagrin of all those closest to him) but I've been in a bit of a "great American novel" kind of mood lately, so I let him talk me into this.

I really want to read Moby Dick, but I heard somewhere (probably here, or, actually, from my fucking father) that no one under the age of forty is capable of truly understanding that book, and for some goddamn reason that stuck with me.

So Updike it is.

[!@#$%!]

some time ago i downloaded buckminster fuller's OPERATING MANUAL FOR SPACESHIP EARTH from robigator's blog

so i'm finally reading it today! about halfway through it.

extra-interesting given current events

[!@#$%!]

now, about this book i mentioned above

the first part and the whole history of the world until ww2 i got, even if i thought that he was stretching metaphors and oversimplifying a bit. but okay. he's all about the value of generalists. so i'll allow it--great pirates, fine, i get your meaning.

but when i hit the chapter about general systems theory however i felt like i was being conned by a flimflam artist. i don't know what the fuck he's really saying. it's like he makes these leaps of thought and we're supposed to follow him because he's being obscure. i don't think so.

so i'm taking a detour and started reading about general systems theory on the side, to see if he's making bullshit claims. i'm okay if he wants to stretch metaphors for a reason, but he seems to get overly esoteric on this chapter for a proclaimed "generalist" and i can't trust what he's saying.

hmmmm....

needs deciphering.

[evollove]

Originally Posted by Severian

So Updike it is.

Funny. I picked up an Updike book over the weekend. My Updike collection is now at 49 books. This number drives me nuts, so I may order something today. Yes, just to have a round 50.

----

Moby Dick does get better with age, but anyone who says shit like "no one under 40 will get it" thinks they know more about life and literature than they actually do. I'd feel bad for such people if I so strongly did not feel bad.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by evollove

Funny. I picked up an Updike book over the weekend. My Updike collection is now at 49 books. This number drives me nuts, so I may order something today. Yes, just to have a round 50.

----

Moby Dick does get better with age, but anyone who says shit like "no one under 40 will get it" thinks they know more about life and literature than they actually do. I'd feel bad for such people if I so strongly did not feel bad.

Thing is, I read Moby Dick -- at least a fair chunk of it -- when I was in junior high. But, along with a lot of the other classics I put away during that time (The Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre), I've forgotten more than I ever knew, so for all intents and purposes I've never read the thing. Just being honest. Maybe 40 is a bit high for a minimum age requirement, but 14 is probably a little low. Honestly, how much can you really know those books when you understand so little about everything else, one self included?

Anyway, I forgot where I heard that "nobody under 40" thing, but it feels like the kind of thing my "look-at-me-I'm-a-literature-guy" father would say. But it stuck with me, and I thankfully still have some time before I hit that age. If anyone wants to offer me a compelling reason to ignore the advice and read the book now, I'm all ears.

[!@#$%!]

so after skipping the bullshit conman chapter about GST bucky fuller goes into "synergy". which was more meaningful back in the 60 than after it got incorporated into corporate lingo.

but there you can see where he's trying to go with things. earth as a spaceship, sure. where it gets interesting is in his theory of wealth and in the transcendence of scarcity and the inadequacy of the gold standard (cue tesla).

he makes leaps of thought so 1/2 of it comes across as bullshit and 1/2 of it makes a kind of intuitive sense.

but redefining wealth is not a bad idea at all from the perspective of the planet as a whole.

and his mockery of "the cost of things" and how that gets thrown aside when there's war is great.

hmmmm....

gotta finish the rest today if i get a chance. im thinking w/ the polar caps melting this is becoming timelier than ever.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

now, about this book i mentioned above

the first part and the whole history of the world until ww2 i got, even if i thought that he was stretching metaphors and oversimplifying a bit. but okay. he's all about the value of generalists. so i'll allow it--great pirates, fine, i get your meaning.

but when i hit the chapter about general systems theory however i felt like i was being conned by a flimflam artist. i don't know what the fuck he's really saying. it's like he makes these leaps of thought and we're supposed to follow him because he's being obscure. i don't think so.

so i'm taking a detour and started reading about general systems theory on the side, to see if he's making bullshit claims. i'm okay if he wants to stretch metaphors for a reason, but he seems to get overly esoteric on this chapter for a proclaimed "generalist" and i can't trust what he's saying.

hmmmm....

needs deciphering.

Hah. I had to read "Spaceship Earth" in grad school. I had a similar reaction. It wasn't the focal point of any in-depth study or even extended discussion, but was instead used as a supplemental text for a Systems Science seminar.

Some people got really into it, others didn't bother reading it at all. I was turned off by the by excessive use of metaphor and simile, but I think I "get" the purpose of using this book as a jumping off point for a discussion-based class on systems. There's also an almost creepy prescience to some of the suggestions made in this book.

I think we have ourselves a bit of a "Great Pirate" dominating much of the world's attention at this very moment, for instance. Ah, but what the hell do I know.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

so after skipping the bullshit conman chapter about GST bucky fuller goes into "synergy". which was more meaningful back in the 60 than after it got incorporated into corporate lingo.

but there you can see where he's trying to go with things. earth as a spaceship, sure. where it gets interesting is in his theory of wealth and in the transcendence of scarcity and the inadequacy of the gold standard (cue tesla).

he makes leaps of thought so 1/2 of it comes across as bullshit and 1/2 of it makes a kind of intuitive sense.

but redefining wealth is not a bad idea at all from the perspective of the planet as a whole.

and his mockery of "the cost of things" and how that gets thrown aside when there's war is great.

hmmmm....

gotta finish the rest today if i get a chance. im thinking w/ the polar caps melting this is becoming timelier than ever.

Why skip General Systems Theory? It's not a long book, and I think if there's a lynchpin, it's probably in this chapter somewhere. This is the one with the chicks, yes?

It's unrealistic, especially now, to think there's any hope for an interconnnected, regulated "crew" for this ship. But I think we ultimately have the capacity to get there, as long as we, y'know, "think big."

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

Why skip General Systems Theory? It's not a long book, and I think if there's a lynchpin, it's probably in this chapter somewhere. This is the one with the chicks, yes?

It's unrealistic, especially now, to think there's any hope for an interconnnected, regulated "crew" for this ship. But I think we ultimately have the capacity to get there, as long as we, y'know, "think big."

im skipping it because it reads like a lot of bullshit and wanted to get to the point of the book as a whole

the chapter seems to be designed to persuade you that the guy knows what he's talking about so you believe him. seems to me there's nothing in it that is required to understand the rest.

shit like this quickie epistemology for example:

Each experience begins and ends--ergo, is finite. Because our apprehending is packaged, both physically and metaphysically, into time increments of alternate awakeness and sleepness, as well as into separate finite conceptions such as the discrete energy quanta and the atomic nucleus components of the fundamental physical discontinuity, all experiences are finite. Physical experiments have found no solids, no continuous surfaces or lines only discontinuous constellations of individual events. An aggregate of finites is finite. Therefore, universe as experientially defined, including both the physical and metaphysical, is finite

the emphasis is mine, because that's so much bullshit. it's much like saying that because integers are finite, the series of integers is finite. yes, so we perceive in packets. can't draw such huge conclusions from that. but that's not all. he proceeds with this gem:

It is therefore possible to initiate our general systems formulation at the all inclusive level of universe whereby no strategic variables will be omitted. There is an operational grand strategy of General Systems Analysis that proceeds from here. It is played somewhat like the game of "Twenty Questions" but G.S.A. is more efficient--that is, more economical--in reaching its answers. It is the same procedural strategy that is used to the computer to weed out all the wrong answers until only the right answer remains.

he seems to be claiming that because "the universe is finite" (somehow) we can incorporate the whole of it into our analysis and somehow arrive to "the right answer" (to what question?) via successive approximations.

it's so much bollocks, to my ears.

he seems to be saying that we understand everything already and therefore can plan it all. like there's no chaos and everything can be predicted. sure, this seems to be a salvo against free market advocates and economists who warn us of unintended consequences, and that's not a bad thing in itself, except that it's totally made up and unprovable. i tend to side with the socratics who only know they know nothing at all. or at least that any truth we have is only partial.

but the general drift of the book (just not this chapter) is rather inspiring, up to a point.

[ilduclo]

Return of a King

 

Afghanistan/India/Iran/Chechnya in the 1820's. Russians/English/Persians/warring families. Gives real good background to the clusterfuck happening there now.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

im skipping it because it reads like a lot of bullshit and wanted to get to the point of the book as a whole

the chapter seems to be designed to persuade you that the guy knows what he's talking about so you believe him. seems to me there's nothing in it that is required to understand the rest.

shit like this quickie epistemology for example:

Each experience begins and ends--ergo, is finite. Because our apprehending is packaged, both physically and metaphysically, into time increments of alternate awakeness and sleepness, as well as into separate finite conceptions such as the discrete energy quanta and the atomic nucleus components of the fundamental physical discontinuity, all experiences are finite. Physical experiments have found no solids, no continuous surfaces or lines only discontinuous constellations of individual events. An aggregate of finites is finite. Therefore, universe as experientially defined, including both the physical and metaphysical, is finite

the emphasis is mine, because that's so much bullshit. it's much like saying that because integers are finite, the series of real integers is finite. yes, so we perceive in packets. can't draw such huge conclusions from that. but that's not all. he proceeds with this gem:

It is therefore possible to initiate our general systems formulation at the all inclusive level of universe whereby no strategic variables will be omitted. There is an operational grand strategy of General Systems Analysis that proceeds from here. It is played somewhat like the game of "Twenty Questions" but G.S.A. is more efficient--that is, more economical--in reaching its answers. It is the same procedural strategy that is used to the computer to weed out all the wrong answers until only the right answer remains.

he seems to be claiming that because "the universe is finite" (somehow) we can incorporate the whole of it into our analysis and somehow arrive to "the right answer" (to what question?) via successive approximations.

it's so much bollocks, to my ears.

he seems to be saying that we understand everything already and therefore can plan it all. like there's no chaos and everything can be predicted. sure, this seems to be a salvo against free market advocates and economists who warn us of unintended consequences, and that's not a bad thing in itself, except that it's totally made up and unprovable. i tend to side with the socratics who only know they know nothing at all. or at least that any truth we have is only partial.

but the general drift of the book (just not this chapter) is rather inspiring, up to a point.

Hahaha... yes, well, it's all rather self-serving, and man oh man does he take "general" to some pretty goddamn ludicrous extremes. But he was a dude standing behind a theory (for, like, everything), that is not testable in the scientific sense. Freud did the same thing. Which is why I tend to read this kind of stuff as a philosophical writing. When I approach it that way it tickles my gag reflexes a little less.

I just thought that General Systems Theory/analysis chapter would serve as a pretty good breakdown of the basics behind the general systems. But it's certainly got some pockets of hot air floating around in it.

I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of what he's saying as stated in this post, but I don't have the book on me and I only read it once, years ago, so I certainly am in no position to offer a counter-interpretation. I do think there might be a bit more of a cohesive flow to it than you do, but it gets quite bogged down in metaphor and meta-speak, so I'd have to revisit to even attempt to untangle.

Anyway, it's not bad for a lecture given to a bunch of engineers in the 1960s. Hahah.

[!@#$%!]

it's downloadable from robigator's blog. go get it!

as for me, i'll be looking for bertalanffy on the actual subject

but i'll finish the spaceship book anyway

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Severian

If anyone wants to offer me a compelling reason to ignore the advice and read the book now, I'm all ears.

There's a very high chance that it'll be a helluva lot better than whatever you considered reading instead.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

I think we have ourselves a bit of a "Great Pirate" dominating much of the world's attention at this very moment, for instance. Ah, but what the hell do I know.

i think he's more of a flat-earther

okay, maybe a pirate (certainly not "great") catering to the flat-earthers

the whole definition of the great pirates was that they were invisible and manipulated nation-states for their ends. and supposedly (as of 1969) they had died off with world war I

then again we're in a new gilded age

here trumpet wants to put all the gold in his burning ship. but who knows what he'll really be doing though. the fucking con artist. go read today's larry summers think piece on the washington post.

i'm speeding up my alpacalypse preparations.

[poisonidea19]

awesome, sounds cool

Originally Posted by ilduclo

Return of a King

 

Afghanistan/India/Iran/Chechnya in the 1820's. Russians/English/Persians/warring families. Gives real good background to the clusterfuck happening there now.

[ilduclo]

yeah, it's part of the duclo "learn about the rest of the world" project, ongoing. It is a very well written contemporary history

[!@#$%!]

so the final chapter was pretty great with his call for a universal basic income and the use of renewable energy and the ideas behind the open source movement, a prediction of the "sharing" economy, etc. etc. and in laying out the foundations of "star trek".

i find the little book pretty great rather than "obsolete" in the sense that we have to really think globally and not as flat-earthers. one often needs reminders. evolution is 2 steps forward 1 step back and we're in the middle of the back-step with preznit trumpet.

so.

yeah.

hmmm...

gotta do something about it next instead of just talking

[Blood_Promise]

Trying to complete Bolaño's bibliography, at least the English translations