10 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
    1. And now I will introduce a phrase,New Encyclopedism. I want to suggestthat something which for a time I shallcall World Encyclopedia is the meanswhereby we can solve the problem ofthat jigsaw puzzle and bring all the scat-tered and ineffective mental wealth ofour world into something like a commonunderstanding and into effective reac-tion upon our political, social, and eco-nomic life.

      Is it the dramatically increased complexity of a polity so organized that prevents it from being organized in the first place? If some who believe in conspiracies or who can't come to terms with the complexity of evolution and prefer to rely on God as a motivating factor similarly can't come to terms with such a complex society, could it be formed? Many today have issues with the complexity of international trade much less more complex forms of organization.

      Might there be a way to leverage "God" sociologically to improve upon this as the motivating force instead? Could that or something similar be a solution?

  2. Aug 2023
    1. We might view human social organization in general in this lens: social organization exists to maximize the extraction of energy from the environment to the group and individual (X), and the efficiency of the conversion of extracted energy into offspring (E). This is identical to the claim that social organization exists to maximize the fitness of the group (Wilson and Sober 1994) and/or the individuals which compose the group (Nowak et al. 2010), given an energetic definition of fitness.
      • for: social organization - evolutionary purpose,
      • paraphrase
        • human social organization exists to maximize
          • the extraction of energy from the environment to the group and individual (X), and
          • the efficiency of the conversion of extracted energy into offspring (E). -This is identical to the claim that
          • social organization exists to maximize the fitness of the group (Wilson and Sober 1994) and/or the individuals which compose the group (Nowak et al. 2010),
        • given an energetic definition of fitness.
  3. Jul 2023
  4. Oct 2022
    1. Mosca backs up histhesis with this assertion: It's the power of organization thatenables the minority always to rule. There are organizedminorities and they run things and men. There are unorganizedmajorities and they are run.

      In a democracy, is it not just rule by majority, but rule by the most organized that ends up dominating the society?

      Perhaps C. Wright Mills' work on the elite has some answers?

      The Republican party's use of organization to create gerrymandering is a clear example of using extreme organization to create minority rule. Cross reference: Slay the Dragon in which this issue is laid out with the mention of using a tiny amount of money to careful gerrymander maps to provide outsized influences and then top-down outlines to imprint broad ideas from a central location onto smaller individual constituencies (state and local).

    2. A personal file is thesocial organization of the individual's memory; it in-creases the continuity between life and work, and it per-mits a continuity in the work itself, and the planning of thework; it is a crossroads of life experience, professionalactivities, and way of work. In this file the intellectualcraftsman tries to integrate what he is doing intellectuallyand what he is experiencing as a person.

      Again he uses the idea of a "file" which I read and understand as similar to the concepts of zettelkasten or commonplace book. Unlike others writing about these concepts though, he seems to be taking a more holistic and integrative (life) approach to having and maintaining such system.

      Perhaps a more extreme statement of this might be written as "zettelkasten is life" or the even more extreme "life is zettelkasten"?

      Is his grounding in sociology responsible for framing it as a "social organization" of one's memory?


      It's not explicit, but this statement could be used as underpinning or informing the idea of using a card index as autobiography.

      How does this compare to other examples of this as a function?

  5. Oct 2021
  6. Sep 2021
  7. Mar 2021
  8. May 2020
  9. Apr 2020