[Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 62, Issue 23

Sat Nov 23 15:02:23 CET 2019

As someone who lives in South America and has lived in four of its
countries I cannot disagree if not in the strongest terms to the statements
(2), (3)  (4) and (5)
" (1) --How easy is to organize demonstrations and activist concentrations.

--(2) How easy is to disseminate information that efficiently counteracts
governments' efforts to maintain social order.

--(3) How easyly anger and hatred are shared among the masses, generating a
collective climate of insults, physical violence, highest irritation.

--(4) How easily outright lies, disinformation, vitriolic attacks are
jumping from screen to screen to the eyeballs of hypnotized watchers.

--(5) The proportion of "negative" to "positive" (say of emotional
responses) has become the highest in the history of communication."

With respect to (2) it asserts that "social order" is emplaced top-bottom
rather than being a collective construal of assentment of this hierarchical
structure produced by opression and inforced by violence, and that "order"
is somewhat natural.

With respect to (3) it is so only in the case of Bolivia where the
indigenous population have continuously suffered genocide during the last
five hundred years which now has become still more opressive since they
were forcefully disempowered by a coup. As a song in Argentina puts it:
"Cinco siglos igual", five centuries unchanged, since the arrival of the
infamous Conquistadores.

Most of the squads which are burning down buildings are a small sector of
lumpen, in Chile, and paid provocators. In no way they correspond to
anything but small groups nor they reflect the state of the population who
is indeed angry and highly irritated due to said opression.

With respect to (4), the phenomenon is more complex. Most of the population
gives no serious attention to the lies and disinformation. Most of the
people are not that stupid. The spell is largely broken

With respect to (5) it is way out of the mark. The massive gatherings in
Colombia, Peru and Chile, with millions of participants are largely
peaceful, with people carrying their children at time singing and dancing
(not in Bolivia where the sudden disempowerment is strongly felt, cinco
siglos igual recently changed but now reinforced), and even attempting to
counter or stop the provocators.at times even protecting the police from
people attempting to inflict them harm. Even though that dozens of people
have been shot and hundreds maimed by the police who shoot to their eyes
even and particularly to bystanders and passerbyes.

Diego Rapoport

El sáb., 23 nov. 2019 a las 9:00, <fis-request at listas.unizar.es> escribió:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. The Age of Discord (Pedro C. Marijuan)
>    2. FW:  The Age of Discord (Joseph Brenner)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2019 12:13:43 +0100
> From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
> To: "'fis'" <fis at listas.unizar.es>
> Subject: [Fis] The Age of Discord
> Message-ID: <83a7fc46-a6a8-7dc9-9c6f-c2061e540dbe at aragon.es>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
> Dear FIS & IS4SI Colleagues,
>
> "The Age of Discord" was the title of a lecture that the historian and
> sociologist Peter Turchin, founder of the Cliodynamics approach, gave
> recently in the Netherlands. The slides can be easily obtained in the
> web (in his blog). The content was mainly referring to a decades-long
> trend of low progress and rise of inequality, and as a consequence
> growing social unrest. It would form part of a secular oscillation in
> history... But I think there is a new potent factor: the
> hyperconnectivity we talked weeks ago.
>
> These days we are watching violent demonstrations in numerous countries:
> Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Iran, Irak, Lebanon... plus
> Hongkong, Spain (Barcelona), France (gilets jaunes), and the rising
> polarization from Trumpism and Brexit. There is a contagion effect in
> some cases. But a common factor is the influence of social networks. In
> several aspects:
>
> --How easy is to organize demonstrations and activist concentrations.
>
> --How easy is to disseminate information that efficiently counteracts
> governments' efforts to maintain social order.
>
> --How easyly anger and hatred are shared among the masses, generating a
> collective climate of insults, physical violence, highest irritation.
>
> --How easily outright lies, disinformation, vitriolic attacks are
> jumping from screen to screen to the eyeballs of hypnotized watchers.
>
> --The proportion of "negative" to "positive" (say of emotional
> responses) has become the highest in the history of communication.
>
> My opinion is that the new media and new modalities of hyperconnection,
> still deprived of constraining cultural patterns, are the genuine movers
> of this "Age of Discord", without rejecting the other factors implied in
> Turchin secular views. This time there is something really new agitating
> history and the masses (like printing press, steam engines...). Is there
> hope that collective intelligence will domesticate this artificial
> information flow soon? Of course, without a loss of individual freedoms.
>
> Best wishes
>
> --Pedro
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Mariju?n
> Grupo de Bioinformaci?n / Bioinformation Group
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
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>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2019 12:54:46 +0100
> From: "Joseph Brenner" <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>
> To: "fis" <fis at listas.unizar.es>
> Subject: [Fis] FW:  The Age of Discord
> Message-ID: <FD131C5612B6496BB84952A50EFAB47B at LAPTOPR7Q1BSBB>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Dear Pedro and All,
>
>
>
> I agree in general with Pedro on the importance of Turchin?s
> transdisciplinary approach, but feel that something is missing in his
> attempted synthesis in Cliodynamics. I say attempted for two reasons: for
> me, he overemphasizes the role of mathematics ? historical databases and
> such, and the title of his journal is Quantitative History and Cultural
> Evolution. This is not to say that mathematical methods do not have a role,
> but if the objective is that history become an analytical, predictive
> science like others so described, I see the potential loss of its essential
> qualitative aspects. The statement that Trump is worse than Nixon is not
> analytical.
>
>
>
> The (clio)dynamics of Pedro?s 5 points are also non-analytical and
> non-mathematizable. However, he uses two, related terms that I think should
> be unpacked: 1) low progress 2) secular oscillation. I see decades-long
> trends of re-gress, such that only if the sinusoidal oscillation can also
> move backwards is it fair to call it an oscillation.
>
>
>
> If it is a fundamental irrationality that is underlying current cultural
> evolution ?or perhaps better devolution, then the practice of Information
> Science and Philosophy must take this into account to be meaningful.
>
>
>
> I am not arguing for the sake of arguing, but the repetition of only the
> most commonly accepted usages of terms is not going to help.
>
>
>
> Thank you and best wishes,
>
>
>
> Joseph
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   _____
>
> From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C.
> Marijuan
> Sent: vendredi, 22 novembre 2019 12:14
> To: 'fis'
> Subject: [Fis] The Age of Discord
>
>
>
> Dear FIS & IS4SI Colleagues,
>
> "The Age of Discord" was the title of a lecture that the historian and
> sociologist Peter Turchin, founder of the Cliodynamics approach, gave
> recently in the Netherlands. The slides can be easily obtained in the web
> (in his blog). The content was mainly referring to a decades-long trend of
> low progress and rise of inequality, and as a consequence growing social
> unrest. It would form part of a secular oscillation in history... But I
> think there is a new potent factor: the hyperconnectivity we talked weeks
> ago.
>
> These days we are watching violent demonstrations in numerous countries:
> Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Iran, Irak, Lebanon... plus
> Hongkong, Spain (Barcelona), France (gilets jaunes), and the rising
> polarization from Trumpism and Brexit. There is a contagion effect in some
> cases. But a common factor is the influence of social networks. In several
> aspects:
>
> --How easy is to organize demonstrations and activist concentrations.
>
> --How easy is to disseminate information that efficiently counteracts
> governments' efforts to maintain social order.
>
> --How easyly anger and hatred are shared among the masses, generating a
> collective climate of insults, physical violence, highest irritation.
>
> --How easily outright lies, disinformation, vitriolic attacks are jumping
> from screen to screen to the eyeballs of hypnotized watchers.
>
> --The proportion of "negative" to "positive" (say of emotional responses)
> has become the highest in the history of communication.
>
> My opinion is that the new media and new modalities of hyperconnection,
> still deprived of constraining cultural patterns, are the genuine movers of
> this "Age of Discord", without rejecting the other factors implied in
> Turchin secular views. This time there is something really new agitating
> history and the masses (like printing press, steam engines...). Is there
> hope that collective intelligence will domesticate this artificial
> information flow soon? Of course, without a loss of individual freedoms.
>
> Best wishes
>
> --Pedro
>
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Mariju?n
> Grupo de Bioinformaci?n / Bioinformation Group
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
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