Thanks Moulton! Hope to see everyone here soon. I have a full day ahead of me. (Dawnis is seen waving as she runs out the door.

A Thousand Clowns by Moulton and Moonbeam Chapter 1 A Tale of Two Fools Once upon a time there were two fools. No one knew if they were lovers or rivals because the subtext analysis was just too damn subtle even for Moulton to figure out. They dressed as clowns. One wore an Emmett Kelley face, with a single tear running down her cheek. No one knew what the other clown looked like cuz he never sat still long enough for anyone to get a bead on him. Mebbe he looked like Zippy the Pinhead, but in this business costume changes are a dime a dozen. Anyway, he was manic as hellmouth, running hither and yon, honking his horn like there was no tomorrow. Well, actually, no one was sure if there was gonna be a tomorrow. The yesterdays had been getting grimmer and grimmer by the century. Nobody was laughing much anymore because the whole land was being laid waste by a rising tide of parody. Everyone wanted parity. And so parody was ratcheting up, tackling more and more sensitive subjects, in search of ever new material. The people dissed everyone, all the way from the President of the United States down to the lowliest nerds at Slashdot. No one was safe from dissing. There were just two things that had not yet been parodied in the wicked culture of comedy. One was the Big War and the other was the Little War. The Big Boys fought in the Big War and the little kids fought in the little war, which was so little it was practically invisible. They called it the Chilly War, because everybody was trying to chill out everyone else. It wasn't working. It was worse than Narnia under the Ice Queen. You know -- the one with those insufferable Turkish Delights. Anyway, the two fools (or clowns if you didn't look past their makeup) decided that they would start a Battle of Mirth on Earth, enlisting 1000 clowns to join the fray. Chapter 2 Here Comes the Judge The two fools opened the Mirthful Circus and began their act, which they hadn't written yet, so neither of them knew what the other was doing. One fool wore an Emmett Kelley costume with a single tear. She reflected the sadness of the world. The other looked like Zippy the Pinhead, running around like a maniac, making merry. All of a sudden, Emmett stopped moving. Eventually Zippy noticed the lifeless body of Emmett and began to panic. Poor Emmett was dying of a broken heart. So Zippy got out his Resurrection Kit and the Jumper Tubes and feverishly began pumping heart juices from his heart to hers. But it was too late. Suddenly there were sirens blaring everywhere. The Keystone Cops arrived and made a big fuss. Chaos and confusion. They hauled poor Zippy off to the Jail of Bad Souls. Well you know what happened next. Zippy was brought before the judge. A very stern (and ugly) dood. "What were you doing?" he thundered. "Just playing. I didn't mean to hurt her." "He did it intentionally! He's out of control! We can't allow this kind of disruption!" the prosecutor roared. "Why did you kill her?" the prosecutor pounded. "Yes, why did you kill her?" the crowd roared. Over and over the questions came. Zippy stood frightened and mute, for he simply didn't know how to respond. Chapter 3 Interminable Introspection If he could have seen Emmett's face, Zippy might have a clue. Meantime, unbeknownst to Zippy, Emmett, quite alive but apparently invisible to those who don't suffer fools gladly, rides around the peanut gallery on her unicycle, sailing paper airplanes made from Really Bad Student Papers at the Geek Chorus while eating salted peanuts. Poor Emmett, lonely and sad. She is oblivious of Zippy's predicament in the Jail of Bad Souls, facing the interlocutors, unable to answer the question, "Why did you break Emmett's heart?" Do you suppose Zippy has any qualms about answering that? In one version, he could say he has qualms about that and would prefer to mourn his loss in peace. But if justice must be served, then Zippy will lose his freedom, become nauseous, disgusted and enraged at injustice, and commit violence, breaking the peace he was denied at the bar of justice. Only Zippy could say whether he has any qualms, and what anxiety has produced them. Emmett, unable to read minds, has no idea why Zippy has summoned the Keystone Cops and consigned himself to the Jail of Bad Souls. Once upon a time, Emmett used to follow Zippy when he went into dark caves. She brought a candle to light her way and help them both find the exits. But you know how dark caves are -- they're pitch black! And because the dark was so complete, Zippy saw the candle light as tractor beams and said it hurt his eyes, and ran deeper into his cave. What should Emmett do next? She has no clue. So she rides her unicycle and stays close by, watching for one. But what if Zippy doesn't even know that the funny feeling in his stomach is called a qualm, or what it means to mourn? What if the way Zippy learned language was to form sentences as complete thoughts? Here is a case where Zippy has no thought to express, and doesn't know anything about expressing emotions and desires instead of a thought. After all, Emmett is a mime. Desires are acted out and emotions are worn as costumery. So where does Zippy learn that the ill feeling in his tummy is called a qualm, and it's there because of being presented with an unanswerable question, and that the natural thing to do is mourn his grief and learn? Zippy knows neither he nor Emmett called the Keystone Cops to put him in the Jail of Bad Souls to face the Judge with unanswerable questions. All he knows is that he is isolated and alone and facing Judgment Day. So here is a dark cave, like all the others, except there is a gap between them. No bridge between two worlds. It's a dilemma. Emmett has lost Zippy and is alone. Zippy has lost Emmett and is alone. And neither know what to do or say. The only thing that can save Zippy is if he can face the Judge and say the truth. And the truth is, he has qualms about answering the question, "Why did you break Emmett's heart," and would prefer to mourn his grief in peace and learn to pay better attention. To be able to do that, Zippy must have learned somewhere along the way that he had that choice. But if the only model the culture presents is the Keystone Cops, the Stern Judge, damning accusations, no free will, no free speech, and no knowledge of emotions or their names, then he is in quite a pickle. Which is what happens when there is no Mirth Culture. Which is why Emmett is mute and sad. Zippy symbolizes the dilemma of the thinker/ worker. Emmett sybolizes the dilemma of the feeler/player. That seems to be one of many dramas that emerge from an integrated system model. It's fascinating. One can see the bogus cultural constructs that engender tragedy and the authentic knowledge to be learned which could save a soul from the damnable culture. Fascinating. Let's boogie. Copyleft 1999, Barsoom Tork Associates in Association with White Rabbit Enterprises. This story may be freely edited, revised or enlarged, as long as it's entirely mirthful and offensive to no one except the Cabal of Control Freaks who can't stomach such creative gibberish. Extra credit for healing medicine. No credit for toxic Amanitas.

(((((((((((Emmett)))))))) Can I help?

(((((((((Dawnis))))))))) Tonight I have a box to type in, so things are looking up.

Well, when they said send in the clowns you did a good job of it. Were you thinking of anybody in particular with the control freaks in the peanut gallery? Hi Nan. Or should I say Emmett. Are you looking for a fool to do battle for you?

Are you volunteering? ;) Got peanuts?

Was I summoned?

We've got boxes for you to type in, Emmitt!

Heh. The Control Freaks know who they are. They're the ones who keep telling me not to document what they are doing. :)

Oh good, a KitchenManager! Do you always have plenty of peanuts and popcorn? How about chocolate? I'm good at soup. Nifty boxes here, Terry. ;)

Yes Nan I think I am. Haven't checked yet what kind of heat I'll be getting in the private Survey conference on opening that latest topic on censorship of comments but I just have this feeling that there will be a big uproar and I will be made to look like the cause of it. Fine. I had an alcoholic father that used that same trick all the time, and I'm just not going to put up with it anymore. But if you can't handle the heat then you shouldn't be Ov D'Ark.

You go, ov!! ;) I'll fan the flames for ya.

OTOH, I just read your latest post over there and R*'s response to it. Maybe you won't need anybody blowing on the kindling, eh?

That surpised me as well. I just have this feeling though that it is going to be a majority rule, and the majority says we don't want to be subjected to thinking about anything that might make us uncomfortable. We're just here to take a little break from our corporate jobs and have a latte and enjoy the consumerist life style. I think that everybody that cares about the same things as I do has already left. I hope they haven't gotten too much of a head start or I'll never find them or catch up to where they are going.

I propose opening a new topic in Cafe_Future for patrons who wrote comments to voluntarily post their own comments. I would even re-register to do that, or let you or Nan post them for me. Or I would post them on my Web site and let either of you post the URL. The Survey Team might not agree it has the license, but the individuals certainly have the right to post their own comments under their own names.

We could post our own comments. Nothing stopping us there. A concern of mine is that only 35 people have posted in there and a third of them are from the survey team. Its been open for a week so that's enough time for any that are interested to jump in. Bottom line is, that nobody cares. Either that, or all those that care have already left because they got tired of flogging a dead horse. Great potential can only keep a person hanging on for so long.

I think you're right about the interest level, Robert. Too bad. :(

Those who care have to run the gauntlet. It takes a certain amount of fortitude to take the flak. It's easy to see why most people (69,000 of them) would just give up without trying. What's left is Gog and Magog.

OV you sound like our kind of people. Moonbeam, Mouton, and the Orenda group are all people who jump up and down like rodeo clowns trying to distract the bull so the rider can get away.

Ov Thought you might like this poem I posted at Utne in the ongoing poetry contest. Indifference In the absence of the sacred, psyche dwindles amidst separatist death control. Slanderers sanction violence roundabout in their words, carry kindness like a burden on their backs in a confused reality. Clear puddles sleep in the dust of domination and deceit passed on as norms. Homespun integration of past swims beyond original blessing. It is noon in this lost paradise, Fall has arrived frantic and wild, brimming with desecration of land, annihilation of spirit, among the charred ruins... as "Philosopher Kings" bandy words.

NASA asked me how I would design a guidance control system for a Mars shot. "No problem," I say. "Here's my plan. We'll let the rocket do whatever it likes until it gets too far off course. Then we'll damage the rocket. That will teach it." Um. I didn't get the job. NASA decided to hire somebody who knew a little more about systems theory. Next I interviewed with the Coast Guard. They were concerned that some of the waves out there on the ocean were just a little too big for comfort. "No problem," I say. "Here's my plan. We'll pass a law saying that no wave shall be any higher than 5 feet. We'll send out patrols. Any wave over 5 feet, we'll take a big paddle and *WHOMP* it to flatten it out. That should do the trick." The Admiral asked me if I'd ever taken a course in Physics. "Physics?" I asked. "What's Physics?" He raised his eyebrows. I didn't get the job. I don't get it. What's wrong with my brilliant thinking?

Apparently the same thing that is wrong with mine...

Brilliant thinking got lost in the think tanks which perpetuate the myth of crime and punishment. Beat that child into submission then he will respect you. Lock that criminal up in jail disregard the fact that when he comes out he won't be rehabilitated but he will have a PhD in crime. Disregard fact that the money it takes to lock him up for the amount of time would have taken him to get a real PhD...would have paid for his education at Harvard. Which would you rather have? A man on the streets with a PhD in Crime or a PhD from Harvard? All together now......A PhD from....... Give me a paddle Mouton I want to join the world and beat the crap out of waves that exceed the height regulations...It beats trying to wake up the zoombies of the world.....zzzzzz

One more time....which would you rather have? A PhD from..........

Quo Vardis Where have you been restless ape a thousand centuries out of Africa ? Dont you recall ? Youve wrapped yourself around the Earth a half a dozen times. The memories have faded now but the journey is written in your language and your genes. Deserts,mountains,jungles all have felt your passing and everywhere youve wandered death has walked with you. For the sake of an easy hunt and a lazy meal how many species have gone down to extinction ? Its an old sad story killer ape . Your noble savage ravaged quite efficiently with lance and bow millenia before the buffalo rifle and the elephant gun. What have you seen curious ape five million years down from the trees ? Your instruments have reached to the edge of forever and recorded creations afterglow. Your electronic eyes have framed the atoms themselves. And every night in every home your magic box brings images of killing fields and shallow graves and Africas starving children. You have seen wonderful things little ape and all the colours of darkness. What have you learned clever ape five million years down from the trees ? You have numbered the stars in the sky and the fish in the sea. To heat your homes and turn your wheels youve kindled sunfire and poisoned anothers child a half a world away. For the sake of cheap food for a few youve played with biological fire and poisoned your own children. You play with pebbles on the beach of knowledge. Sometimes inspiration piles three or four together and hubris speaks of grand and unified theories. Yet all around a myriad pebbles lie in natural harmony their unity unseen. And down the beach an ocean of possibilites lies shimmering with potential.......unvisited. You must learn to swim little ape and soon. What do you believe ethical ape five million years down from the trees ? Do you still follow priest and shaman ; thieves of the spirit and the mind ? You no longer sacrifice your children in bloody ritual merely reason. For the sake of tribal cohesion you propagate planetary polarisation. A prophet points his finger and a host of crazed fanatics fall upon their neighbours. Its time to grow up little ape ; cast out your demons. If you must have magic look around you. Theres more magic in a forrest glade or a mountain meadow than a thousand wizards can conjure. The only reality is existence. If you must have purpose take hold and shape your own. How do you govern communal ape five million years down from the trees ? You presume to order the affairs of a planet when you cannot order your own. You presume to control a world with a gaggle of third rate village elders. You celebrate the failure of the Marxist experiment. You revel in the triumph of the Free Market. Be careful simple ape for the Market has many dynamics including chaos and collapse. Your world is caught now in a tightening web of information and instant action. If the wrong thread breaks and the wrong card falls all may fall. Individuals are sentient not systems ; yet systems generate powerful currents which flow beyond your ken. You could be swept away like Rome and Babylon. Look to the bees of the air and the ants in the fields. Understand their patterns and flows for they are your patterns too. Like all life emergence is your destiny not individual human intellect nor individual human will. Where are you going restless ape a thousand centuries out of Africa ? You have left your dusty footprints on your sister world. Your robot proxies have sent back picture post cards from all the Sun�

Quo Vardis Where have you been restless ape a thousand centuries out of Africa ? Dont you recall ? Youve wrapped yourself around the Earth a half a dozen times. The memories have faded now but the journey is written in your language and your genes. Deserts,mountains,jungles all have felt your passing and everywhere youve wandered death has walked with you. For the sake of an easy hunt and a lazy meal how many species have gone down to extinction ? Its an old sad story killer ape . Your noble savage ravaged quite efficiently with lance and bow millenia before the buffalo rifle and the elephant gun. What have you seen curious ape five million years down from the trees ? Your instruments have reached to the edge of forever and recorded creations afterglow. Your electronic eyes have framed the atoms themselves. And every night in every home your magic box brings images of killing fields and shallow graves and Africas starving children. You have seen wonderful things little ape and all the colours of darkness. What have you learned clever ape five million years down from the trees ? You have numbered the stars in the sky and the fish in the sea. To heat your homes and turn your wheels youve kindled sunfire and poisoned anothers child a half a world away. For the sake of cheap food for a few youve played with biological fire and poisoned your own children. You play with pebbles on the beach of knowledge. Sometimes inspiration piles three or four together and hubris speaks of grand and unified theories. Yet all around a myriad pebbles lie in natural harmony their unity unseen. And down the beach an ocean of possibilites lies shimmering with potential.......unvisited. You must learn to swim little ape and soon. What do you believe ethical ape five million years down from the trees ? Do you still follow priest and shaman ; thieves of the spirit and the mind ? You no longer sacrifice your children in bloody ritual merely reason. For the sake of tribal cohesion you propagate planetary polarisation. A prophet points his finger and a host of crazed fanatics fall upon their neighbours. Its time to grow up little ape ; cast out your demons. If you must have magic look around you. Theres more magic in a forrest glade or a mountain meadow than a thousand wizards can conjure. The only reality is existence. If you must have purpose take hold and shape your own. How do you govern communal ape five million years down from the trees ? You presume to order the affairs of a planet when you cannot order your own. You presume to control a world with a gaggle of third rate village elders. You celebrate the failure of the Marxist experiment. You revel in the triumph of the Free Market. Be careful simple ape for the Market has many dynamics including chaos and collapse. Your world is caught now in a tightening web of information and instant action. If the wrong thread breaks and the wrong card falls all may fall. Individuals are sentient not systems ; yet systems generate powerful currents which flow beyond your ken. You could be swept away like Rome and Babylon. Look to the bees of the air and the ants in the fields. Understand their patterns and flows for they are your patterns too. Like all life emergence is your destiny not individual human intellect nor individual human will. Where are you going restless ape a thousand centuries out of Africa ? You have left your dusty footprints on your sister world. Your robot proxies have sent back picture post cards from all the Suns children. And now your instruments have watched the dance of many worlds around other sunlike stars. And when you go there little ape will death or wisdom walk with you ? Can you hope to commune with other minds when you do not know your own ? Can you live in harmony with others when you cannot tolerate youself ? Be careful killer ape the gentle peoples in the stars may share your nature. Perhaps it would be safer to stay home and walk the twisted highways of your heart and mind for a little longer yet. There are sparks of promise in the darkness protean ape perhaps your luck will hold. Perhaps your luck will hold.

Sorry about the double post...I thought the first one didn't even go through.

Who is this Vardis person, Debra? Alexander Resident ***Censored, Because, Uh, Dunno***, The Spring

Oh. Barry, I wanted to look a some of the links you posted, but couldn't find either the Spirit nor the Philosophy confs at Caf� Utne. Huh? Alexander Resident ***Censored, Because I'm Being Denied My Human Right To A Latt�***, The Spring

Both conferences are there still, Alexander. I used to host them. Utne recently changed the Cafe server -- go to cafe.utne.com, enter (or register), and click the "list all conferences" button. You should see them.

Alexander...I don't know...I can ask my friend who sent it to me. I just think it is beautiful and expresses the situation we, as humans, are now facing. Utne is there, in it's full glory, I just went in and checked the poetry section. ((((((Moonbeam)))))) Did you get my last post, last night? Did my magic dust stir up your muses?

Alexander It was written by Dave Greg, December 1998.

Oops. Yah. Cafe Utne switched servers... * The Joy Project at Cafe Utne, http://cafe.utne.com/motet/bin/topic?Spirit+124

I'll opt for Stanford, Dawnis. :) NPR is running a story even as I type this in of the MIT engineers who worked on the guidance system for NASA's moon landing. I'm so used to hanging around people who grok guidance and control theory that it's hard to conceive of responsible people in our society who never heard of systems theory or control theory. The Stanford scholar who developed the system model of conflict and violence in our culture began by studying Dostoevsky -- Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Fyodor Dostevsky crafted a literary model that was so transparent, Professor Girard was able to abstract out the elements of the underlying model. It's like Newton's Laws or Maxwell's Equations. A brilliantly compact formula that fits on a page, and from which all the drama in history, literature, and scriptures can be derived. The moon shot relied on telecommunication (an application of Maxwell's Theory) and propulsion and guidance (a derivative of Newton's Laws). Now we have a similar model for the human drama and conflict. It's hard to imagine all the insights that will flow from this new system model. But I can already envision a few.

Here is another shot at discovering the laws of human dynamics from our good friend, Deepak Snopak... http://www.sdaine.com/spirit/s-chopra.html#laws

Oh, Debra -- was THAT what gave me such a whopping allergy attack? Your magic dust? Yoikes... it stirred up something in me, but not my muses. ;)

(Dawnis is deflated) Did I pull out the wrong dust again? (sigh) Age has it's good points and it's bad points...and brain farts seem to be one of the lesser attractive things that go along with it.

* Moonbeam re-inflates Dawnis * Don't take it personally, please. I'm just having a long, long, hot summer in which I haven't been hugged or loved or cherished by a real human being for a long, long time -- and I'm beginning to think that my need for such physical contact constitutes a character flaw or weakness; I can't find anyone else who seems bothered by such lacks.

My Thumminator must be on the fritz again.

Karl Schulmeisters loves ideas. He loves to discuss, explore, compare, and contrast ideas. And he loves to do it on a site that bills itself as "a dynamic and evolving community where it is our goal to discuss ideas & issues in a thoughtful and respectful manner!" Karl Schulmeisters is a tough cookie. If you're gonna discuss ideas with him, you'd better be prepared to lay out a cogent line of reasoning. Sloppy thinking won't get you very far with Karl. He's one of many "Olympic Class" thinkers who e joy taking their brain out for a spin on sites like Cafe Utne. Meantime, over in China, something very interesting is going on. According to a story in today's New York Times, the Chinese Government in Beijing is expected to announce a nationwide ban against a movement, called Buddhist Law (also known as Falun Gong). The independent daily newspaper Sing Tao quoted the Government directive as saying the group had "engaged in superstition and disrupted public order, thereby damaging social stability." The full story is at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/072299china-protest.html The allegation of "disruption" is one I hear a lot. But novel ideas are often "disruptive" as they can lead to new thinking and a change in practices. For a community that professes to be "evolving" it would be difficult to host consideration of innovative ideas without some people feeling disrupted. According to the NY Times story, Li Hongzhi, 48, is a former grain bureau clerk now living in the US who founded Falun Gong in 1992 as "a fusion of the ancient Chinese practice of qigong -- the channeling of vital energies through breathing exercises -- with elements of Buddhism and Taoism." He now relies heavily on the Internet to communicate his ideas. A central practice of Falun Gong is a breathing meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh and Deepak Chopra have also published guides to breathing meditation. I have a like-minded colleague who regularly sits Zazen with a small group. And I've been exploring breathing meditations myself. I never realized how alarming that is to authority figures. I'd better watch my step, er.. breath.

((((((((((((Moonbeam))))))) You are not alone. I have been going through the same thing for months. Most of the time I am fine and very self contained...but then there are times when I feel like if I don't find someone I will go nuts. The problem is always finding a male who isn't so damaged that the hugs aren't worth the chaos they add to the mix. (sigh)

thank you for that, debra. i am too stirred up to be of any use to anyone right now.

The neat thing about Chaos Theory is that it is actually possible to unstir the pot. But ya gotta do it right. It's like getting out of the Labyrinth. The method is called Backtracking. :)

(((((Moonbeam))))))Is there anything I can do to help? (Dwnis wraps a warm Navajo Blanket around Moonbeam and lights sage.) I was up by Chama today and passed Ojo Caliente (sp?) I thought of you. Was wishing you were there too. We went to Ghost Ranch to see the dinosuars they dug up there. Dotty is studying Paleontology so we did the drive through the Jemez and swung up to the Chama area.

Greetings all. Almost forgot you were all here being wrapped up in the battle and all over at Utne. Yes disruption is a dangerous term, a faustian bargain, best to stay clear from that word. With civility at least you don't prevent anything you just drive it down into the subconscious. Does anybody have any idea how big a virtual community can get before it either becomes inbred and collapses in on itself, or swarms and in this manner is reduced to a manageable size. Are there are people around the Spring aren't there that know about this type of thing? I thought that the problem was one of authoritarianism, but it is more than that. I'm starting to think that is a partial truth, a concession that distracts the digger from digging all the way to the root of the problem. Authoritarianism is visible at least. It's the Santarogo Barrier of Frank Herbert that recides in the collective subconscious that is the real problem. Some say there is no problem at all, lets chat, and bring on the new blood to entertain us. We greet them and sap their energy of the honeymoon because we remember what it was like and know that we can't have it again. Been there and done that and wasn't it grand but that was in our youth when we had hope and before we settled into a jaded acceptance. Fresh meat, fresh meat, they bang the tin cups on the bars, and the newbies misteak it for welcome. A place to belong, it's so big, these are our type of people, I've finally found my tribe. Heh So you're so cool. Glad to see you. You'll never get bored, there's just too much to see, you'll never see it all, welcome to the biggest thing you ever saw. The promise offered that once you belong you will understand and why don't you want to meet us, come in come in. Fresh meat, fresh meat, fresh meet, flesh meet, lets do f2f Enough of this here is the bottom line. We came three years ago and had the honeymoon and talked about all the serious things that were save to talk about. In the process we became friends and substituted this love of ideas for this social stroking and having everybody tell us over and over that we were the biggest and brightest and the best the web had to offer. We don't want to talk about the ideas anymore because we already said it all. The newbies are saying things we heard before, lets shut them down. Silently ignored they go away except for those that chat and stroke and pretend they were here too in days of old and reading through back posts and hoping once they know they will be part of the inner circle that talks once again of the big ideas. By the time they find out that what was promised through implication of golden days long past is never to be there's the honeymoon is over and disillusioned they leave. Or join the group of mindless chat and pretend they were there and seduce the fresh meat that curries to their favor. A revolving door of fresh blood full of hope and they suck the best energy dry and what remains is dried flakes. Psychic vampires sucking the honeymoon charged energy of fresh blood. Run away or die but do not tell, and do not dare scare away the fresh blood.

Good rant, Ov. The things that matter most to me now are the things that are the most deeply embedded (yet largely unexamined) assumptions in the architecture of the culture. Are rules and sanctions a good way to regulate society? Why or why not? What other regulatory processes exist that might be preferable? Is blame sufficient to establish cause and effect? Is there a scientific way to establish cause and effect in which the answer is not a function of the party with the authority to fix blame? Are guilt and shame a viable tool to regulate behavior and induce learning? Why or why not? How are induced guilt and shame related to the emotions of remorse and embarrassment? What happens in a society where one party has the power to impose rules and sanctions and to fix blame? What happes to a society where the inhabitants engage in a recurring contest to induce guilt and shame on each other? What alternatives could there be? I am looking for a culture where systems thinking supplants rules and sanctions, where cause and effect is studied scientifically, where learning is based on naturally occuring emotions such as curiosity, puzzlement, fascination, remorse, chagrin, and insight. I am looking for a culture where the natural process of enlightenment is able to exist and thrive. If Utne can evolve to that culture, that would be good. If not, then we must craft it elsewhere.

Those are all good questions Barry. Guilt, shame, power, authoriy, rules etc you know there is nothing wrong with any of these things. Without them nothing would get done and we would probably land up tearing ourselves apart in the process even more than we are now. All those questions seemed a set up for an excuse about how something that we currently have has to be gotten rid of. Heretical blasphemer that I am and how can I hate patriarchy as much as I say I do if I don't want to destroy the main characteristics of it. One the one hand it would be nice to get rid of all those things that have in the past turned out to be ways that have been used to force control over a population. If only we had freedom and elightenment then we wouldn't be having any of these problems. What problems? And then we go to a great deal of time and effort to show all of the negative implications that accrue from a system that uses power to control. But on the other hand if we get rid of all rules, regulations or the power to enforce them then we are left with a small group that still controls every action and behavior as osidiously as the paragraph above but they are invisibble and nobody can see who they are or what is happening. A societal body of any size will have rules and the question is whether they are explicit or implicit. Calling them by another name such as "thinking" or reason isn't going to change this. As soon as an attempt is made to prevent any particular type of behavior there will be negative consequences. But saying that anybody can do anything they want only empowers the implicit to do exactly what was trying to be prevented by the explicit. If there is any solution at all to this dillema I think it will involve motivating the individual members to act towards the greater good because they want to rather than because they have to. And the have to can include externally imposed force, or internally generated guilt or obligation. How to arrive at this situation is the sixty four trillion dollar question.

I propose to supplant rules with Best Practices. Best Practices are used in many disciplines (other than civil law) to empower practitioners to achieve the greatest good with the least effort. It's like Hints From Heloise, a compendium of Better Ideas. Most professions have professional societies which work toward the discovery of Best Practices.

I agree with Moulton. Rule based shame creates good deeds out of fear. It is this fear which keeps us *in our place* when we see terrible things happening around us. I see "good" people around me every day who do not react appropriately when they see terrible things done to others around them. They have become sheep who are afraid to stand up to injustice because they have been taught since birth that to stand up is to be different and to be different is taboo.

To deliberately try to induce shame in someone against their will is an ill-advised practice, according to research by Harvard Psychologist James Gilligan and others.

It might be a whole lot easier if homosapiens didn't have emotions. Maybe thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago it would have been useful to discuss this point, but now that pandoras box has been opened there is no going back. Humans are wired for emotions and its not possible to choose which emotions to keep and which to get rid of; it's a package deal. And to try and remove all emotions simply results in angst and alienation which is indistinguishable from emtions. Rules, shame, fear, guilt and alienation are not the problem, but simply symptoms of a deeper dysfuncional structure or dynamics. I'm not comfortable saying even this because it implies that there is something else that is the cause of our problems rather than us, and by us I mean homosapiens. We can't seem to get over this idea that something better than ourselves has to come along and save us. We have a tendancy to abdicate the responsability of making the big decisions to some higher authority. We are more comfortable being slaves because then we do not have to ever risk being wrong on any critical decision that affects our continued existense as a species. Notice that in the 15the tarot card, the devil, the 21 compliment to the 6th tarot card the lovers, the humans are in bondage but it is of there own choice since the chains are loose enough that they can be slipped off. Maybe they have tried before and they were just too heavy. Maybe a switch of perspective such as the hanged man, care 12, would be enough for these chains to fall off of their own accord, but then again can we function with that much blood rushing to our heads?

your third paragraph is an excellent point, ov, and I think the downside up viewpoint switch is an excellent suggestion as well!

Ov I have spent year being an activist...personal choice is not at the root of it either. The zoombie masses are asleep and don't want to be bothered until the wolf is knocking at their door. Then they jump up and down and howl and scream...but the rest of the world is still asleep...until the wolf is at the door...then they too jump up and down and squeal....but the rest of the world....get the picture? Are the chains heavy? Yes...but the chains being wrapped around my heart are even heavier as I watch the insanity around me and the sleeping masses choosing to cop out. Time is running out. I did not bring children into the world to bequeath them this insanity. Where are the other parents in the world and why aren't they screaming? I home schoolded my 20 year old because Irefused to send her into a war zone...but the parents who got what was happening at school where miniscule...what kind of drugs ar they on that they can't see what is right before their faces?

Eventually the wolf will break down the door. Then it will eat the sheep, and gorge until it is so full that it becomes complacent and falls asleep. Then those that were wise enough to wait and hide, can kill the wolf, and skin the hide, and sit before the fire on furry rug and talk about the next era that has just begun. I submit this as my application for cold hearted bastard of the millenium.

Homo Sapiens, being a Learning Being, cannot escape having emotions, any more than a feral critter can avoid having speed and agility. All moving objects, sez Professor Newton, have velocity, acceleration, and jerk. Got no choice, sez the inventor of the Calculus. And then he goes on to explain Differential Calculus, as everyone except a few MIT nerds fall asleep. ZZZzzz... One of those nerds, who actually stayed awake and learned the Calculus, noticed that it applies to all dynamic systems, including (drum roll...) Learning Systems. And then, while again everyone slept through the drone, he wrote down some equations. Let K(t) be the total accumulated Knowledge of a Learning System at time, t. Then Learning, L(t) is the "speed" at which new Knowledge is acquired. L(t) = dK(t)/dt But we don't learn at a fixed speed. Our rate of learning speeds up and slows down, and sometimes becomes arrested for a spell. Agility at learning means being able to turn corners and learn in new directions. And so, back to Newton's Calculus. E(t) = dL(t)/dt What! Come again? E(t)???? Emotions???? Do you mean to tell me, and this committee, that we have emotions because we don't learn at a constant rate? Yup, Senator. I mean to tell you just that. And what do you call the 3rd derivative, pray tell? Depends. Newton called it "jerk" and that sort of fits, don'tcha know. But it can be also called "flash of insight" or in extreme cases, "epiphany" or "revelation." Egads! Spirituality boiled down to the bloody calculus. What you been smokin, boy? No smoke, Senator. I'm just sittin here quietly on my mat, meditating. Like them Native Americans in Minnesota or them Chinese ladies in Hong Kong. Sitting quietly, studiously, breathing, meditating, and occassionally downing a stray slice of pizza.

You can afford to buy smoke and pizza? I'm envious. No, no, no plese not the calculus of learning again. Karma bonce. That is when I get to feel the way that I make other people feel when I behave in certain ways. For example how most people must feel when I try to associated the creation of a topic with an object oriented class object.

I'm not most people. I'm perfectly comfortable with OOP Classes. Think of a topic as a Factory. Creating a topic is building a new Factory. The Factory produces ... um what do you call the product here? :)

Well I had a lot typed and went to hit control back arrow to move the cursor back a word and hit alt back arrow by mistake. Being inside MS right now this took me to the previous screen and when I went back to this screen the box was empty. Is this an IE problem or a yapp problem, where you can't leave a page without losing it. I think we produce discussions Barry. But I like the OOP class concept better than the factory concept because we output ideas and thought rather than emperical constructs. Classes are used in computer programs. There is methodology for designing software. I wonder if there can be methodology for designing concepts?

Ov it took him a while to convince me because the concept is so new....but it really grows on you. Hey Moulton...got any fetilizer?

Greetings Debra. Not sure who he is that was convincing you of what. Were you talking about the calculus of emotional learning? Debra how long have you been here at the Spring? and have you been to other virtual communities as well? If Moulton caught and kept all the fertilizer that has ever been thrown at him he would have enough to blow up several institutions. Well he might have to mix it with a little diesal fuel first. There's lots of fertilizer around but where do you find the fuel?

I came in with the Orenda group. I am a refugee from Utne....Oooooooo. I still post in the poetry section when I find time and I was refering to Moulton. I hate models because too often they are so rigid they do not allow for variables but this one seems to work.... for what ever reason. Yeh I hear that Moulton collects flack and laminates it and then he turns it into art deco furniture in MuseNet...sort of like make lemonaide from lemons. I love rebels since I am one myself. The status quo bores me! I'm going to look up a poem I wrote and post it.

The promised poem: Redundancy Redundancy the outer plane, the world wants repetition. Don�t ask them to extrapolate, stick to subtraction and addition. Visceral passages please omit, inner growth discarded. Syntactic constructions obsolete, useless words in dictionaries. Homosapian thought defoliate, human minds.left empty. Pedagogues and all my peers, teachers and fellow students. Hear my obstreperous voice, resist control with unruly manner. My pundit self vociferates,. my intellect cries out. Redundancy my battle-cry, spurn repetition my slogan.

I've just spent the last three hours watching a most fascinating movie. There was a little bit of humor here and there but mainly it was a psychological drama. Very intense. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it a mystery because there were so many layers to it that you never quite knew what was going on. The basic plot was that a few game players (GP) saw an empty theater and reserved it for a play. Then they invited a couple of authoritarian personalities (AP) and some more people walked in off the street. GP: Do you want to come and see a play? AP: What's it about? GP: Some authoritarian personalities have volunteered to have nervous breakdowns and let us watch. AP: Sounds interesting, we wouldn't miss it for the world. Everybody had their roles to play, their scripts, and the associated cues. Some of the actors were on stage and some were down in the audience. None of the actors knew what the other actors scripts were. The AP however didn't know that they were the play and that they could leave at any time in which case it would be over. They didn't however because it wasn't in their nature to quit, and because in order to see what was going on they would have had to acknowledge that they were authoritarian, which was also something that they coudn't do. At one point it seems that the AP realize what is happening and leave the stage. The GP must unexpectantly adapt their scripts and start to improvise. Members of the audience pick up on this and think this is what is expected of them so they do the same and start acting as well. So now nobody is in control and a chaotic situation exists, which wouldn't be that bad since this is still a situation where nobody is being forced to do anything. The AP however, who had momentarily regained control by exiting the stage, had now lost control and were forced by their nature to return and save everybody. At this point absolutely everybody forgets that this is not real, and the AP are allowed to call the cops and shut down the theatre. Like a Greek tragedy everybody marches toward their destiny even when they can see that it is leading to disastor. A very interesting film and if you get a chance you should rent it. Lots of interesting subplots as well. It's called "No, not *IN* your Face, precisely. Deal with it. Please." The step off the cliff notes version of sex.258

Laminated Flack is now available for your viewing pleasure.

Oh goody! Is this your new line?

Oh goody! Is this your new line Mouton? Ov: Sounds like something we could pull off here with the Green Party. (chuckle)

I've been doing Far Out Theater for over a year now. I did a lot of it in Meta, in several topics there, including the one Keith Rice opened and named in my honor. Kai called it Boxcar Theater, because to his mind, the dialogues were "boxcars full of gibberish." The railroad meme turned out to be very powerful. Lo picked it up in her "yup yup yup" byline, which labels the preceding posts as being in agreement or not. The pattern of "yup yup yup nope yup" identifies the pattern of the conflict, which evolves around a common gap in knowledge. If the parties hang in there long enough, they can identify the common gap in knowledge, and gain a quantum unit of insight. Boxcar Theater, or Far Out Theater is designed to reveal the gap in knowledge around which the parties are dancing their tango. The Engine and the Caboose of the train are the deep-seated fear and the sought-after relief from the fear. The Fear of and the Got ? are separated by boxcars of gibberish which conceal the unexpressed feelings and emotions.

Oops. I got meta-parsed. That last sentence should read: The Fear of <Engine> and the Got <Caboose>? are separated by boxcars of gibberish which conceal the unexpressed feelings and emotions. Also, the 500-character string limit bit me twice up there. The one you prolly didn't guess right is this one: The pattern of "yup yup yup nope yup" identifies the pattern of the conflict, which revolves around a common gap in knowledge.

Did you have to precede those angle brackets with a backslash to get them to show? Read through Utenbury. Very interesting. What ever came down about the posting of emails on your site? If somebody sends me an email, then isn't it mine to do with whatever as I please? I mean legally. Also if I send an email to somebody can't I also publish what it was that I sent? It would seem to me that a person would only be in legal trouble if a third party posted the email and both the sender and the receiver were to file for action. What's the reality of the situation? It's interesting about the ignore feature. Yes if everybody in a group puts a person on ignore then that person no longer has the power to influence. However it will never happen that everybody will place somebody on ignore. I don't know how this came to be, but there is the common assumption that whatever is not rebutted is by default accepted to be true. Combine this with the fact that about the only thing that pisses off a control freak more than not being in control is having somebody else know so ething that they don't.

To post the angle brackets, the technique is to write: & l t ; and & g t ; These 4-character codes will produce meta-characters for Less Than and Greater Than that would otherwise be parsed as HTML tag markers. I posted the unsolicited, unwanted e-mails from Kai in which he threatened sanctions if I did not meet his non-negotiable demands regarding my postings on sites other than Cafe Utne. And for publishing them, he canceled my access to Utne and took personal ownership and control of my intellectual property there. I do not consider unsolicited and threatening e-mail to be protected, confidential, or copyrighted. Imagine a kidnaper suing the victim for publishing the ransom note on the basis that it was confidential and copyrighted. It's a ludicrous argument. Kai admitted coercion in one of the e-mails. He evidently sees nothing wrong with coercing people. If two parties enter into a correspondence by mutual consent, and agree to keep their conversation confidential, that's fine. That's an agreement, entered voluntarily, without mental reservation. But when Kai unilaterally sends me a threat, no such agreement exists. I automatically publish the threat. That's what horrified him and the others. I exposed their back alley dealings, their secret campaign to damage my standing elsewhere. The antidote to control is observation. Bearing accurate witness. And the only way to bear accurate witness is to exhibit the raw evidence. My spin version of his message doesn't count. If I spin it, Kai can unspin it. If I publish his raw message, there is nothing spun and nothing to be unspun. That's what shocked him. That's why he is so adamant about denying anyone the right to republish anything verbatim. But news is news. And tyranny is news. Tyrants just hate being photographed in the act.

&llt; alrighty then > So this whole thing about legality is bullshit then and the publishing of somebody else's email on the web is only something that Kai has made into a "law" because he wants to play these games. Kind of like the other day it was obvious that absolutely everybody knows that you're not supposed to show links into private conferences. One thing that I want is to make things explicit because if they aren't then everybody knows whats going on, but if you say something they deny it. Oh well I guess if a person get's into childish games its really hard to say who is the most childish.

It's all bogus. He makes up the rules as he goes along, and then violates them himself when it serves his purposes. Roxanna posted a link to LJ before I did. And I asked Kristie if that was OK and she said yes. But then, when I did it, all hell broke loose. Their rules are a sham. A veiled excuse to visit indignities on people. It's about as bogus as it get. Corruption in the spirit of King John. The control freaks are absolutely slaves of their Amygdalas.

I f the only way of proving that someone said something harmful is to reveal a post, I agree it is legitimate to do so. I had my e-mail broken into and posts removed to keep me from using it as evidence in a grievance. The best thing that could happen on this planet is that we all became able to read minds. You would see an end to BS at that point.

The problem is, some people already believe they do read minds. I see people form misconceptions about someone else's thoughts, feelings, or intentions, and then visit sanctions and indignities upon them on the basis of such unexamined models of another person's mindset. It's utterly horrifying when it happens.

That is exactly what happened to me at Utne. A group of people decided I was angry and hounded me about being angry despite my clarifications until I became angry with them for insisting I was angry. I left the conference because nothing constructive was happening in regards to the actual topic because my state of mind became the main topic.

It's a form of psychological warfare which I have seen everywhere in our culture. It greatly vexes and perplexes me. I've seen it done in politics, in litigation, in personnel evaluations, in TV sitcoms, on talk radio, and in adolescent cultures. It's a basic lack of awareness of civility. I believe it's destroying our culture and wreaking havoc with our emotional well-being.

I think there might be an intentional effort to prevent any kind of constructive discussion because it would provide an example of what is possible when people form solidarity outside of officially sanctioned institutions. Similar idea to how the US spends so much effort on preventing "good examples" of democracy in action in some third world countries. Democracy has been redefined to be what is in the best interest of the corporate sector rather than the best interests of the people. Chomsky provided a good case for this in "The Culture of Terrorism." Except from his perspective the terrorists were US government supported covert operations. This idea of using the web to bring people together so they can operate from collective action is one of the big struggles of our time. Keeping everybody atomized and isolated is the best defense that centralized control has of maintaining centralized control. I find it interesting that the radical right is one of the biggest fear mongers on the dangers of the net, and at the same time are the most successful at using the net for their own evangelicism. They hate it because they know how powerful it could be.

You go guy! Ov: I sang in Canada in the late 70s. (Grin...I read your Bio at Utne) I was in Onterio...Toronto, Petersborough, Hamilton and Sudsbury. I was in an all female rock and roll band. Canada be cool! I had Satan's Choice (Canada's Hell's Angels) taking of their colors to come here me sing...Grace Slick and Linda Rondstat, Joplin, the Beatles, the Doors, Hendrix, among others...Grin. We was a hot item up there back then.

Excuse the typos I typing on the run...(blush)

I've got a poem that really should be a song. Needs a cross between Grace Slick and James Earl Jones, maybe I've slipped a cog here but I mean the voice behind the Darth Vadar mask. Tell me if you can feel the power and hear the music in the background.

The Divine Design by Robert Oveson In the beginning there was darkness It was black and it was void And there was nothing but the word The word was Be No more no less Just Be cast adrift on a sea of total nothingness. Now was this a noun named Be Or a verb and a quest and a destiny Either way it matters not For whichever way you choose Be was all alone and in the dark without a single clue. With the faith to believe That there was a methodology To find the ideal strategy And that somewhere down along the line Through permutations and transformation Achieves self creation And applies it back to the start of time Be declared this to be law Law by design. As events started to unfold Be saw there was more to it than that For Nothing turned out to be The ultimate primordial vat From which nothing could escape And before all would be done All the parts in their diversity would have to act as one And communicate, and cooperate And see the whole plan through Be declared this to be Design Law number two. Now it had to general Because you couldn't know all that was involved The plot would be oral so that it could evolve And it had to be dynamic so it could withstand the change This order of General Oral and Dynamic Became the trinity That Be declared to be Design Law number three. The focus is on knowledge and what it all means Philosophers would later write Of how its more that what it seems Of what is it made that gives it physical form And from what is it begot that caused it to be born What is its function and how does it perform And what is its purpose and its future hold in store To all things these questions Combine with deductive lore Be declared this to be Design Law number four. The future is the possibility Of what you want and what you need With imagination waiting to be explored Inducting options to multiply rather than divide And search out what it takes to come alive. Be declared this to be Design Law number five. Through synthesis all things combine The past and future intertwine In common cause that transcends time. As for effect there is free will And it all depends on what you pick There lie the cunning in the cosmic trick That Be declared to be Design Law number six. In this chaos of complexity And you think your in too deep Enjoy the easy parts while your awake And do the hard parts in your sleep It shall be on Earth as in this subconscious heaven Be declared this to be Design Law number seven. With this Be realized And came alive as concept materialized Be became I Am Then cycled the essence of its being Through the process once again Going back to the start of time With Be revealing the divine design And watching it unwind and branch and grow Until it feels the pulse And is prompted to trace back to the core And each and every time It's more beautiful than it was before In the end there was darkness It was black and it was void There was nothing but words But two were I Am And another one was Be It's all you'll ever want And all you'll ever need This meaning passed through verse Is to be and become one with the entire universe Be

On Free Will and Self-Creation Yesterday Today and Tomorrow I Was What I Was I Am What I Am I Will Be What I Will Be

((((((((((Ov)))))))))))) Are you planning an operetta? That's a lotta lyrics.

There would be enough material for an opera if the story was told from the last debate prior to the big bang through to the myth goddesses seduction of Horace, but that's all I've got lyrics for. Wish I could sing, play or write music. Before the big bang, at that stage where concept is attempting to create matter, so that it can prove that it is real, all the components come together and check for consensus, and if not then disperse and further converse, and then come together once again. Have to be sure because there's only have one chance, so if any part has the slightest doubt they break away and work it out, then come back to try again. Like a multibranched fireworks burst expanding and contracting in pulsating harmonics. Until finally eventually not one says halt and infinitely contracts into nothingness and expands out the other side into matter. And the sound of the spheres is in the design and fifteen billion years to build the reciver for a message sent out long ago and in the doing prove that it matters. Wild woman of my dreams tell me the story once again.

We are discovering our creation story.

I think I just discovered one of the reasons that these topics go dead. I mean besides the obvious one of somebody sounding like they are so far out there that everybody is afraid to talk to them. It's not being afraid ov, it's just that we don't want to. Oh, sorry. Unless something new crops up you have to list all topics, and then when you hit on the topic all, every last one of them, all of the topics come flowing down. Thank gus this only had 85 topics or it would have crashed the browser for sure. Things are still chugging along over at the old place. Seems that being a manipulative sexist is the latest charge to be added to my sentence. Funny how they start crawling out of the woodwork when you don't behave the way they want you to.

I just had to tell a guy at Utne: Your statement is very condescending, presumptuous and patronizing. I will not honor it with a reply. I am not in here to defend myself. I came here to engage in discussion about inequities and I thought possible solutions. His statement was that since you just graduated from college, I will make allowances (or something to that effect) but you need to stop just critiquing and start building. It was so hard not to feed into that crap and start telling him everything I have done as a activist. Grrr Another one off my hotlist.

I don't know what gives with this software. Whole chunks of postings vanish before I read them -- must be something I'm doing without knowing it or the way I have something set. I dunno. But I just discovered I'd missed everything written in this topic since July 26. Most times when I log on here it says "0" in all my conferences.

Sometimes it's not what we say as much as how we say it, Debra, especially online where nobody can hear the melogy of our voices, or see our facial expressions moderate our very opinionated opinions.

I really get frustrated when I'm told I'm being negative just because I don't buy into the consumerist propaganda, or when I question the current status quo.

They've got you over a barrel, Robert, but you've got them backed into a corner. It's all part of the scapegoating process. The interesting thing in Cafe_Future, for me, is that there are enough people there who understand this mechanism that it's not working very well. Some of them, like Kate, don't want you to be made a scapegoat, because it would make her a party to the mob. (Never mind that she already is, but she most definitely doesn't want to be seen that way. Do you blame her?) So there's all this push me-pull me stuff going on in the conference. They've opened it up for comment, which is to say they've invited people to question the status quo. So if YOU do, how can they call you negative and then speak out of the other side of their mouth and thank others for doing so? That's the corner you've got them in. The barrel they've got YOU over is, of course, that when they accuse you of something that's untrue or misinterpret what you've said, and you defend yourself and set the record straight, you're "being defensive" -- which we all know is just negative as all hell. ;) Good luck. So far you're dodging the bullets perfectly. And your performance in Meta, making up with Suzanne, was golden.

Thanks Nan, but I didn't consider that to be a performance. Nor any of what's going on over there as a performance as far as that goes. Been playing this as clinicaly cold as a coroner. Being able to dissasociate is one of the gifts that I inherited from my childhood. Let me qualify that previous paragraph. Challenging Karl to a one on one debate in a new topic in Cafe Future was a bit of a performance. I'm a bit dissapointed that he didn't want to. I think we could have shed a lot of illumination. That much illumination probably would have burned me out though so maybe it was for the best. One of the things that has been irritating me about this whole process is that I'm being forced to defend myself on points that, for my perspective, have already been covered and if they had read what I had wrote they wouldn't have had to ask the question in the first place. I don't know whether they are using the flippant dismissive technique or whether I'm just not being as clear as I think I am. Right now I'm just trying to wrap up the loose ends with integrity. If the cafe doesn't change then there is no reason for me to be there, and if there is an effort to change then at this point I can't be involved in that change because there will always be this question of my motivations and whether or not I'm on a power and control trip. I think that I have been a big part of planting the seed that will enable them to do it on their own if they reach that collective desire to do so. Then again, maybe its just one more story floating around the net.

"Thanks Nan, but I didn't consider that to be a performance. Nor any of what's going on over there as a performance as far as that goes..." I'm sorry, Robert. I tossed off an imprecise word again, if you took my meaning as being a "staged" performance. I simply meant, I thought you did a very good job with Suzanne in Meta, making peace. It was a performance only in that it was played out on a public stage, IMO. I think I gave you a cheer in Meta, and I should have let it go at that. I'm not doing at all well tonight with words, in real life. :(

That's okay Nan. I didn't take it badly. Though the challenge to Karl was a performance. For the last year I have been contemplating the alternatives to rule based systems. I'm not exactly against them, because in the abscence of explicit rules all that happens is the rules are driven underground and become implicit. This allows for the leadership by a small clique. On the other hand if you implement a system of rules then you simply transfer power to whoever is best able to use these rules to their own advantage. Plus, if you have a system of explicit system of rules then it becomes a constant game of finding ways to violoate the intention of the law without violating the letter of the law. Entertaining for some, but energy sapping for everyone else. Pushed to the extreme this results in a system where everything is forbidden except that which is explicitly stated and the explicit is mandatory. At this point creativity, and live, are essentially dead. So it's between a rock and a hard place. The only way around this, it seems to me, is for there to exist a larger common goal which everybody desires, and which provides its own postive feedback in the process of obtaining that goal. Fucking and orgasm is a good example. Rallying the troops to go for this would indeed require a performance. I have given up on that dream happening in the cafe. The performance was cancelled before it even began. Maybe, just maybe, somewhere, there is a group of people that want this as much as I do. But how do I find them?

About the only way to get into a community of systems thinkers is to organize a community of systems thinkers in which participation is limited to those who are systems thinkers. Mebbe if the price of admission were an essay on Recursion. :)

Proposed opening post of a new topic on Utne: In the "saloning" tradition, Cafe Utne purports to be a dynamic and evolving community where the stated goal is to discuss ideas & issues in a thoughtful and respectful manner. The intention is to provide people with new and innovative solutions for living more balanced, fulfilling lives, and bringing about positive change in the world. Let's take a few measurements and see how close we are coming to realizing that overarching goal. Let's begin with some background reading on the Best Idea of the Millenium, according to the editors of the New York Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/millennium/m1/soyinka.html What evidence can we find, both pro and con, that we are discovering, developing, and demonstrating better ideas for crafting a better world?

"About the only way to get into a community of systems thinkers is to organize a community of systems thinkers in which participation is limited to those who are systems thinkers. ... Mebbe if the price of admission were an essay on Recursion." Well, count me out then. I'm much too nonlinear to be classified a "systems thinker" -- and Recursion as an essay topic simply makes me want to run and hide.

Barry the topic that you proposed sounds too much like a challenge and I think that it would be polarized right from the start. There is a new topic that has just started over in Big Sangha that might lead into some of this. It's about doing all of the little things that go unnoticed but together add up and make a difference. Richard made the comment that this is what he thought was happening in the cafe right now. Maybe there is a lot more going on in this regard than is visible because it has been pu hed underground. Your post on systems thinking was quite timely. I resent the mail that went through empty last night. Did you get a chance to take a look at some of those links and have you seen them before. It looks like there are people that are doing this type of work. The question is if they want us to be part of their group. My initial suspicion is that those that are working on this would exclude those that haven't got the proper credentials, such as a PhD in this field, or are part of the professional lecture ircuit on this. You might have a chance of breaking into this but I doubt that I would. Recursion sounds too computer geeky. Bootstrapping is also a computer term but it seems to have migrate into other disciplines.

I just looked at some of the links. They didn't seem to have an open forum at any of them.

Can't resist snarfing the century post. I didn't see any open forum there either, but I'm sure that this type of thing must be going on in private conferences at least. I take it that you don't know of any public forums where they are specifically talking about systems thinking, is that correct? If I can find a place that has free private conferences would you be interesting in setting one up on this subject? I would be interested in participating. Perhaps the first step would be to do an inventory of who is who in the field and find out where they hang out. Then once we have the territory mapped out we could recruit people that are interested. I think you would be a much better person to do this since this seems to be your main passion, whereas for myself it is related but not primary. The problem with private conferences is the critical mass and all the usual stuff. Or do you think that this is something that has to be in an open forum?