Geodesic domes are of great interest, but I think they are not suitable for traditional decor. A style suitable to the dome hasn't been developed. Possibly something along the lines of Cardasian design (Deep Space Nine) would be more appropriate.

One would, of course, want comfy chairs, tables, beds, baths, sinks, kitchens, and so forth but we haven't found a way of using round space that really looks good. Most of our decor is designed to fit into spaces with flat parallel walls, ceilings, and floors.

Yes, that is one of the reasons for specialization and working for organizations rather than working individually. I know how to do a few things that are really useful; it doesn't add up to enough skills to supply myself with food, clothing, shelter, etc.

That is a perennial contradictions of anarchism: Organizations are inherently bad, but without organizations we all starve. Some people starve even with organizations, but with organization more people get fed.

How Shakespeare's English sounded.

Thank you for that helpful clarification.

about 8:30 p.m. on January 3, in 209. There was a really bad cold front that moved down over the Balkan peninsula and was stuck there for a week. Stiff as a board. Joking, obviously. I hope it's obvious, anyway.

Well, Koine and Attic Greek that were committed to "paper" and then banked in libraries got separated from daily use and were frozen, because it ceased being an everyday language. Of course, another branch of the river of Greek language stayed liquid--the branch that is spoken today.

Shakespeare's language was "frozen" in a similar way -- committed to print, then repeated verbatim into the present, while the rest of the language went on changing. BTW, There have been some very successful performances of WS's plays spoken in Elizabethan language with (reconstructed) pronunciation.

Srap Tasmaner mentioned that languages evolve, but I find I'm still not getting how that could be taken literally. — frank

The biological evolution that had anything to do with "language evolving" happened a long time ago -- likely some time in the late stone age, once we had evolved into the modern human species -- 100,000 years ago, give or take a few.

But language as a cultural phenomenon does evolve, is evolving all the time. For a longer range view, take a look/listen to the first few seconds of this: Beowulf read in Old English (c. 4-500 a.d.), also known as Anglo Saxon. Look for the phrase " "That was a good king." I bet you'll be able to detect it:



Now listen to a few seconds of this: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales read in Middle English, c. 1450:



first four lines in Middle English

1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
3: And bathed every veyne in swich licour
4: Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

I don't think you need the modern English to figure out what it means, but here it is:

When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;

So, you've seen English 1300 years ago, 600 years ago, and 15 minutes ago.

Here's an example of current evolution in progress: The word "block" (like, city block) is generally pronounced with a "schwa" sound -- soft 'a'. A specialist in dialect noticed that in Detroit the pronunciation was beginning to shift about 20 years ago: the 'schwa' sound was transitioning to a short 'e' sound, as in fleck or deck. So instead of "let's take a walk around the block" you'd year "let's take a walk around the bleck." Neither of us is handy with the system of phonetic symbols, so you'll just have to imagine what this sounds like.

I don't know why block--->bleck is happening; it just does. Back in Chaucer's time, some vowels were pronounced the way continental Europe pronounced them, like the "i" in machine, and other words shifted away from the continental sound to the a British system, like the "i" in spine, grind, or rinse. Final 'e" was pronounced (sounded like 'uh") in Chaucer's time; 300 years later final 'e's were mostly silent.

So yes, languages literally evolve. Some languages (Latin, Greek, Sanskrit) were frozen because they became specialist languages used by learnéd people with fixed rules. Some versions of Italian (so I've heard) are very close to Latin. Hebrew was once a frozen language, mostly limited to liturgical use. Now it is a working language again (like in Israel) and it will get limbered up and change.

Does it really all get purchased? And if so; how much of it ends up in the landfill within 10 years? — XTG

Most of it gets purchased. THAT part is under control. After it leaves the store, most of it will end up in an open dump, a landfill, a municipal incinerator, or if we are very very lucky, a recycling operation. A lot of it is just scattered all over the place, or will go down the drain into the rivers, lakes, and oceans.

Most of the stuff we buy means nothing to us, and once it is used and disposed of, out of sight (however that is achieved), it is out of mind.

We do not seem to be able to fully grasp this basic truth: stuff doesn't disappear. The plastic packet from which I squeezed mustard will, for all practical purposes, never disappear. All the tiny pieces of it will be somewhere. In 100,000 years those tiny pieces will still be in existence. All of them.

Masculinity and femininity are built on the same human chassis and share a lot of parts, share a lot of performance features, but the vehicles that roll off the assembly line are unmistakably different. The dogmas about masculinity and femininity manage to be a disservice to both sexes. It seems to me that there are some essential biological differences between males and females which are the basis for differing emotional affect. While acknowledging differences, there is also considerable overlap, and beside overlap there is plasticity. But men and women are different. Viva la différence!

To whatever extent men and women bond differently, one type of bonding isn't better than the other. (You aren't saying that, but I've hear it said.)

"Male culture" may reinforce the suppression of emotionality in boys and men, but a good share of it starts in childhood, under the management of women -- mothers, caregivers, and teachers. It's not something that most women do or (probably would do) deliberately, but boys are taught early on to control (suppress, really) their emotions. A good deal has been written about how current standard classroom practice is ill suited to boys: lack of recess periods (outdoor activity time, preferably twice a day); expectations that boys will sit still for a long period of time, and so forth. Boys seem to suffer more from this than girls do, but it really isn't good for girls to be taught to sit still all day, either.

Many children, boys or girls, have few opportunities to "go outside, play, and explore the world" because "the world" is perceived to be too dangerous, or in some places IS too dangerous. I grew up in a very small town in Minnesota and pasture land, fields, and woodland were very close by. A lot of urban folk simply don't have access to that sort of environment.

Later on, as boys reach early adolescence, then I think the influence of male culture (for better or worse) becomes a stronger influence.

We are all subject to a lot of influences -- peers, partners, parents, relatives, unrelated adults, school, media (whatever form), the church (for some people), the military, and so forth. The messages are multi-directional--be like this, no, be like that; don't do this, don't do that... etc.

I'm gay and 71, so... I don't have a huge amount of contact anymore with younger men, these days. As a gay man, I've associated a lot with other gay men--all ages--who generally tend to be more emotionally 'available' and emotionally expressive. But the gay male subculture is a small part of the population. There are a number of middle age straight men at some groups I belong to that are extremely emotionally constipated -- just don't know of a better word to use. Some of them are just totally boxed in, others express their emotionality through intellectuality -- better than nothing, but not really healthy either. A lot of straight guys can't express approval effectively, and rather than expressing anger readily, they just slowly carbonize inside.

It seems to me that competitiveness is an essentially male feature. Biological creatures that humans are, we are not discontinuous with our evolutionary roots. Most male creatures compete for something--like mates, food, territory (food and mates). Brains and culture have helped us avoid the grind of individually scrambling for food and mates, but the drive is still there. So it often gets expressed on the freeway. I have to admit that when I am out bicycling, I like to compete with other riders (not that I'm much competition any more. Used to be.) It just feels natural.

Men, it seems like, are more likely to bond over work, or an objective, a battle, a cattle drive, clearing snow, taking down a tree, etc... than just over each other. Women "do lunch". Men get together around car repair--figuratively, if not literally.. Working together is one way that a lot of men interact. They can work on a project, hunt together, do sports together, build together -- all those sorts of things. Work provides a mediator they--we--can employ to bond and share.

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum. Great topic.

It seems overwhelmingly likely that gender does have something to do with it.

Antaus, you are quite right that men are being ill-served. My only problem here is "Where does one begin?" because the dimensions of real gender differences and differing gender needs is so large a a problem to define.

I'll come back later -- there's 14 inches of heavy sticky snow on the sidewalks of Minneapolis and I now need to do something about my small share of it.

ONE good thing about all the underpaid, exploited adjunct instructors who would like to be professors, but are not going to be, is that they are free to teach. They don't have to worry much about publishing pointless papers and they can pursue their interests freely.

Another good teaching group in college are full, tenured, agéd professors who are getting close to retirement and no longer need to prove anything.

It is the younger, fully committed to the not-so-tender trap of the tenure track who are made to suffer the most.

Get ahold of yourself!

By the way, I'm inclined to be in favor of the rebels starting their own art school. I generally approve of rebels. But... whether they can make it work financially and 'professionally' is another matter.

There is a bookstore in town here, Mayday Books, which is a 100% rebel operation. They've been "in business" for maybe 45 years, though I'm sure their sales never covered the rent in the ratty spaces they've occupied. They have a sugar daddy, apparently. They are more of a meeting place than a going book selling business, and I laud the devotion of the rebels who have kept it going. I used to belong to a socialist group who served the same sort of function -- we were more of a meeting place and discussion group than any threat to capitalism, but such rebel operations are important to some people.

We are long past the time when only a small number of wealthy people sent their children to college to study whatever they felt like studying, or what was deemed 'necessary' at the time. After WWII, ordinary people enrolled in affordable colleges for the purpose of obtaining a liberal education, yes, but also to get on the conveyer belt of upward mobility. And, by and large, it worked very well for such purposes for quite a while.

Over time, say by the 1980s, people getting off the end of the conveyor belt were finding that their liberal arts degrees were less useful in the job market than they had expected. As the cost of college rose, they also began stepping off the belt with fairly large college loan debt. Debt and few great job opportunities has soured a lot of people on college education.

If commercial art provides better job prospects than a classic atelier school, or some rebel art-for-artists approach does, then that is the responsible thing for art schools to teach. Same goes for the state university. If nobody is hiring French Literature majors, then one needs to be honest about the program's benefits. It might be worthwhile, but be aware you won't get hired to teach it. If students disappear, so will the major, and so will the French Department.

I was lucky; I started college in 1964 when college was still cheap. My long range planning was abysmal, and I got a bachelors degree in English Literature. Never taught it, but having the degree helped qualify me for some decent jobs that had nothing to do with Shakespeare. It was worthwhile. I'd do it over. In fact, I'd like to do it over, though at 71 that doesn't make much sense.

No, suffering is not inherently meaningful, and I am sorry you are suffering, whatever the cause.

Back in the 1980s and early 1990s when gay men generally died of AIDS in prolonged suffering, some claimed to be grateful for AIDS because they had found meaning in life. (The guys saying this were the ones still walking around. The ones who had reached end-stage weren't expressing gratitude.)

I always thought this "AIDS helped me find meaning in life" was a total crock. What probably helped them find meaning, if they indeed had, was that they had been drafted into a community of diseased pariahs who gained fellowship in shared suffering and mutual support.

That sounds harsh, but at the time there was a lot of malarky going around.

People who are very sick or severely injured often suffer miserably before they die. Were the dying to be tended and all watched over by machines of loving grace‡, without human companionship, there would be NO MEANING found in their suffering. Meaning comes from human context.

The tragedy of isolation, alienation, atomization, and allied states is that when we are cut off from human fellowship, and everything becomes meaningless. Suffering is bad, and without companionship, suffering is further aggravated by meaninglessness.



‡"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - Richard Brautigan, 1935 - 1984, a 'beat poet' among other genres

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

I am 99% sure I posted a comment in "Why I Left Academic Philosophy" a few hours ago on Friday the 13th, and it appears not to be there. I rewrote the post. I'm fairly sure that on occasion other posts have disappeared too -- -posts that were good enough to be left alone. Software glitch?

The author of the article demonstrated two things to me: First, there is nothing at stake in much of the graduate work being done in the Humanities. "The System" has narrowed and abstracted the possible topics of research to such an extreme that they are now of no consequence to anyone.

The second thing is that there is obviously an oversupply of advanced degreed graduates and and a severe shortage of jobs to place them in.

Academic humanities didn't get to this sad state overnight. English was crowded 40 years ago, as were other fields in the humanities. PhD dissertations have been narrow and obscure, but perhaps not absurd, for many decades as well.

Study literature, classics, or philosophy if it pleases you, if you can afford the pleasure, and if you do not need to find a job in it. If you can't afford it, then just read and enjoy it on your own.

Do you think there is something intractable in life itself which your main solutions of better community and more projects to focus on anything we think of will not be able to fix? — schopenhauer1

Yes, of course. We are not perfectible. We will always be not-quite-smart-enough primates with primitive emotions which will ever derail our best efforts. Our primitive emotions can be quite dark, too. We are pained by existence, sometimes quite pained, yet we are unable to alter our basic approaches to life.

Perhaps we could not guess what would happen at the time, but embarking on the Industrial Revolution and loving the glories that flowed from smoke-belching factories and pollution-spewing tailpipes has led us to the unpleasant place where we are now, contemplating our possibly slow, over-heated demise.

One of the obvious conclusions one should reach after recognizing that we will not stop global warming is that bearing more children makes no moral sense whatsoever. When, and/or if, later in this century, it becomes clear that human life will become unsustainable on earth, will people stop reproducing? Of course they won't. Some will refrain, but many will just go right ahead.

I think you are quite right that the rate of new groundbreaking technological developments is slowing down. The major developments of technical development which we see today reflect the progress of the previous century of research and development. Over a century of development produced yet another product in the Smartphone, introduced around 10 years ago. Old fashioned computers, telephones, and radios had to be developed and perfected first.

It takes at least 50 years for a new technology (like radio, or like computers) to be fully developed, exploited, and superseded. The potential of railroads, the internal combustion engine, electrical motors, the jet engine, radio, transistors and integrated circuits, and numerous other technologies has been pretty much realized. That means that major new developments in those technologies may not occur. The perfected technology will just be continued in use into the future, unless something much better comes along.

Researchers are now looking at quantum computing to find a way to transcend the limits of silicon.

It may seem like a given decade of your life (fairly young? just guessing) presents a lot of change. New apps are available frequently; new versions of smartphones are offered regularly; new snacks appear in the Worthless Foods aisle of your local supermarket. But look, some of these changes are significant,and some of them are of no significance whatsoever. Hundreds of millions people--billions?-- drinking water out of plastic bottles is a very recent development which is nothing by the success of marketing. The industrialized world NEVER needed to put water in plastic bottles.

The 19th century saw tremendous change: Photography and telegraph were introduced before 1850--168 years ago. The age of instant communication over distances arrived before Abraham Lincoln was President. Railroads were introduced around 1830 to 1840. Edison invented sound recording in 1878. The first electric generating station was built in 1882. The telephone was invented in 1876.

Radio transmission and reception was invented by Marconi in 1899. The first radio broadcast to the public was 1920. The beginning of modern data processing was very early in the 1900s with the invention of the punch card and card reading equipment. Hand powered mechanical calculators became motor driven. The first completely electronic desk calculator was in the 1960s -- it ran on vacuum tubes.

Computers were introduced during WWII. Some of them were mechanical (like the code-braking machines), some were electro-mechanical, and all of them were unwieldy but effective. Even for the early NASA projects, teams of human "calculators" did the complex math on paper.

Things like cell phones don't spring into being all at once. The cellphone grew out of developments in computerization, miniaturization, old-fashioned telephone network technology and radio technology. Launching cell phone systems required substantial analysis and long-range planning.

A lot of what appears to be brand new and amazing is old technologies combined and perfected over time. The component ideas behind the smart cell phone go back decades.

I still don't get that one. — schopenhauer1

There are things I don't get either. My thread on social capital, which I thought was a productive topic, has been waylaid by several posters who, for some perverted reason, have a reaction of fear and loathing to assessing the level of social capital in the thousands of US counties. In a way, good social capital is the opposite of alienation, but these people just seem to hate the idea of surveying social capital -- like they were making up a list of people to send to the gas chambers, or something. I don't get it. I would think everyone would be in favor of determining how healthy or sick various communities are, in terms of solid families, social interaction, low crime rates, etc.

You are not going to like this, but it all goes back to why we have new humans in the first place. Why bring more people into the world to keep the MACHINE afloat? — schopenhauer1

Marx stuffed a lot into the Manifesto. One of the points he covered was "the reproduction of labor". The folks who run and have run societies, be they pharaohs, oriental piss pots, caesars, shahs, brahmans, lords of the castle, viking raiders, tribal chieftains, bourgeois factory owners, top gestapo leaders, or multi-billionaires, understand that if people don't keep breeding, the market will suffer. Armies won't find fresh recruits. The fields won't get plowed. Production will be short-handed, and consumption will be short of buyers. The value of stocks will fall, which, horror of horrors, is the worst thing that can happen.

Oh, no -- wealth evaporates!!! Keep breeding, people. Breed, baby, breed. Fuck your brains out, and skip the b.c. pills and prophylactics. You might not be producing quality, but quantity counts too.

Marx wasn't the only person to think and write about alienation. In English, at least, the term "alienate" was coined about 300 years before Marx came along.

EDIT: ATOMIZATION, ANOMIE, PLUS ALIENATION CHARTED HERE



Just guessing, but perhaps the primary meaning in 1770 had more to do with the "alienation of property" rather than the "alienation of persons feeling like they were getting shat on", which is more the meaning today. Atomization and anomie haven't caught on, oddly enough. Let's all use these words more often. It's the least we can do.

At any rate...

During the period of high emigration from Europe to the US, 1840s through 1900, say, military and imperial apparatchiks were definitely concerned about the loss of population for the reasons stated above. Losing a million adult breeding pairs could give a crowned head throbbing pains. "Why, oh why don't the wretched peasants want to remain in their filthy hovels, spawning a brood of brats that will someday become excellent cannon fodder?"

The mass immigration to the US is well known; less well known is that a lot of wretched peasants found that life in the United States could be just as wretched or worse than the old world, and wretched without the familiar ties that bind and quirky festivals that peasants enjoy. Quite a few returned if they could, and resumed their more familiar wretched and quirky existence in Europe.

No doubt, the OT command to be fruitful and multiply was conceived at a time when the available personnel didn't seem to be sufficiently high. Given the death rate, biblical people probably never found themselves with too many people, unless you count the enemies occupying desirable plots of land.

This information was linked in the OP, but let me point it out

Where did the information and terminology for the Social Capitol Project come from?

The American Community Survey, the National Survey of Children's Health, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System are produced respectively by The US Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control

The Internal Revenue Service, Master Business File (information on non-profits)

The Election Administration and Voting Survey (voting behavior)

The US Census Bureau (breakdowns of 10 Year and Special Surveys)

The Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, FBI

University of Michigan Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research

The rankings of states and counties was based on the following statistics. You can certainly quarrel with their choices, but this is what they used:

Share of births in past year to women who were unmarried
Share of women ages 35-44 whoare currently married (and not separated)
Share of own children living in a single-parent family

Share who report child spends at least 4 hours per weekday in front of a TV
Share who report child spends atleast 4 hours per weekday on electronic device, excluding homework
Share who report someone in the family read to child every day in past week

Share saying they get the emotional support they need only sometimes, rarely, or never
Average number of close friends reported by adults
Share of adults reporting they and their neighbors do favors for each other at least 1x/month
Share of adults reporting they can trust all or most of their neighbor

Share of adults who report having volunteered for a group in the past year
Share who report having attended a public meeting re. community affairs in past year
Share who report having worked with neighbors to fix/improve something in past year
Share of adults who served on a committee or as an officer of a group
Share who attended a meeting where political issues were discussed in past year
Share who took part in march/rally/protest/demonstration in past year

Registered non-religious non-profits plus religious congregations per 1,000

Average (over 2012 and 2016) of votes in the presidential election per citizen age 18+
Mail-back response rates for 2010 census
Share of adults reporting some or great confidence in corporations to do what is right
Share of adults reporting some or great confidence in the media to do what is right
Share of adults reporting some or great confidence in public school to do what is right

Violent crimes per 100,000

Share who report having made a donation of >$25 to a charitable group in past year

No one person can ever in their lifetime know the mind bogglingly large number of factors that go into all the products that they encounter and use. This alienation from factors of production is a problem as we are atomized from the sources of production- reduced to a tiny infinitesimal fraction of the larger pie. Without grandiose notions of free-fettered capitalism's amazing invisible hand or the overblown notions of alienation from labor in Marx rhetoric, is this a problem for modern humans? — schopenhauer1

True enough, manufacturing has become extraordinarily complex. But that isn't "alienation" exactly. Edited, Marx said,

- My work would be a free manifestation of life,
hence an enjoyment of life.
Presupposing private property, my work is an alienation of life,
for I work in order to live,
in order to obtain for myself the means of life.
My work is not my life.

If a man builds his own house, cultivates food on his own land, hunts his own game for food and leather, etc. his work and life would be a unity. Since the industrial revolution, the expansion of the capitalist economic system, urbanization, and so on -- fewer and fewer people have had any opportunity to experience a unity of work and life.

Almost all of us work for others, because we must. Production of all that we need and want is pretty much centralized and highly organized. We work in order to obtain the means of life, as Marx said -- food, clothing, shelter, heat, etc. But our work is not our life. We don't work for the sake of the work we do; we work so that we can buy bread.

That is the kind of alienation Marx was talking about.

There is another meaning of alienation, and which is increasingly common, where people don't feel like they belong to the world they live in. They feel like outsiders. They don't feel needed, wanted, or loved. They don't feel they have any value in the world they live in. And worse, they might be right. Capitalism values people on their ability to produce wealth through their labor. Outside of that... what good are you, anyway?

The second meaning of alienation comes from, but perhaps not obviously, the fact of one's working in an office or factory that is private property and one is just a hired hand. It comes from the recognition that one, in fact, may not have a place in the world that can't be taken by someone else -- just about anybody else.

When we alienated, unhappy people have lost all our connections that bind us together, we are atomized. The next stage, after Alienation and Atomization, is Anomie, the lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.

But of course so too with 'social capital', which is as a much a disease as it is a cure. — StreetlightX

I am thoroughly baffled that something I consider at least benign, but actually very desirable, social capital, to have elicited such negative responses. What is objectionable about determining the percent of families that are married couples with children? Two parents produce better outcomes for their children than one parent. It isn't mysterious why--there are four hands instead of two to do the work of raising the children, and generally two incomes instead of one, with lighter material burdens on both parents. Communities whose citizens are involved in civic affairs generally provide more satisfaction to residents than places where there is no civic engagement, or active hostility toward civic engagement.

Focus on infrastructure. Focus on healthcare. Focus on good education - new textbooks, good teachers, flexible extra-curricular programs. A well maintained, affordable, and extensive system of public transport. Well kept public spaces for recreation. The 'social capital' will flow from there. Not some arbitrary metricized rubbish, invention of technocrats and people with no ability to understand the shape of individual lives. — StreetlightX

Why does one community have good healthcare, good education with new textbooks, good teachers and well maintained buildings? How does it happen that City "A" has a "well maintained, affordable, and extensive system of public transport" and in city B, there is a minimal, barely functioning transit system? Why does one city have parks and recreation while another has only concrete and cars?

Whether it was present at the beginning of a city's history, or came about as a later reform measure, the infrastructure that makes a good city had to have advocates, interested citizens, and many citizens willing to accept a higher tax burden to get these public goods. (At least in the US, city infrastructure is often paid for by either property taxes or bonds repayable through property tax.) Good infrastructure usually doesn't come from heaven as a gift.

I mentioned in the OP that the county I grew up in (Fillmore) was not wealthy. It is quite hilly farmland, small farms, and very small towns. There is very little industry, no mining, and only small tourist attractions like a cave, a bike trail, and canoeing on a small river. Its population is about 20,000 in 860 square miles. It's about 92% NW European ethnicity.

Still, by measures of social capital, it is # 36 out of 2600 counties in the US. Why? Because it has very stable population, long-lasting community relationships (little geographic mobility), a stable but hardly vibrant economy, strong families, and good community institutions--churches, schools, and small town organizations. People have been willing over the last 100 years to tax themselves, volunteer, and pay for their communities' good features. That's what social capital is about -- the people.

There are neighborhoods in Minneapolis, wherein I live now, that have maybe 20,000 people living in comparative density, and simply can not pull together cohesively for any common purpose. Why? They lack social capital. Their population is very mobile (here today, elsewhere tomorrow), not very interested in pursuing education, not civically engaged, fragmented families, and associated poverty and crime. Other neighborhoods, same size, same diversity, same population, same city, are much more engaged and consequently obtain more infrastructure (like frequent bus service, better school maintenance, more street repair...). The overall infrastructure in the city is the same, but some areas engage with it and are nice areas in which to raise families (or live singly). There is less poverty, less dysfunction, less crime.

I'll grant you, good infrastructure is a public good, but citizens have to be willing to work for it, and use it for maximum benefit.

it seems like a big part of the guiding narrative for those of us who live in the US - is an overall suspicion of government (think separation of powers, federalism, etc.) and a corresponding emphasis on the importance of non-political or sub-(national)political things like individual responsibility, private charity, local politics, etc. — Erik

The New York Times and other newspapers have on a number of occasions published maps of the US which display state-by-state or county-by-county characteristics. One of the lessons of the maps is that the US is not nationally homogenous, and in fact is more homogenous within regions. Stephen Pinker has observed similar things about the US in his book Better Angels of our Nature.

The northern tier of states (more or less), or the far NW American states + the Upper Midwest + the NE American states have a much lower level of suspicion toward government than the SE, southern, and SW parts of the country do. It isn't entirely coincidental that the areas on the map at the beginning of this thread show healthier levels of social capital (or healthy human ecology) across the north, and much lower levels across the south.

The historical experiences, the politics, and the religions of the 3 northern regions opposing the 3 southern regions are different, and contribute to the quality of social capital that exist. The theme of resenting centralized authority (whether at the federal, state, or county level) is much higher across the south than the north. A preference for hard-edged individuality "I'm not responsible for your problems", and "it is up to you to take care of your own family" are more typical of the south than the north.

So, there are many parts of the US where you won't find individuals spouting suspicion towards government.

My understanding of the term is that a volunteer fire service counts as social capital, whereas a paid fire service does not. — unenlightened

Unenlightened bends over backward till his ears are between his ankles.

I don't know about England or Australia, but in the US large cities have paid fire departments because swift and expert response is critical in a large city with many hazardous substances, high-rise buildings, dense population, and many buildings built close together. In a small rural town, the fires will either be an individual house fire (normally not very close to another house) or a barn fire, fueled by stored dried hay. When small towns do have larger fires, they summon help from other volunteer departments. In large cities, additional paid help is summoned from additional fire stations.

Fire departments are a part of healthy social ecology (a term I am using just for you since you can not stand "social capital" apparently.)

The existence of social services counts as a contribution to the healthful community ecology of communities. (Do you like "healthful community ecology" better than social capital?) Unemployment is a social service, and your working in an agency as part of the program is social service, whether you were paid through the unemployment fund or paid as an agency employee.

[quote=unenlightened[/quote]I do what I need to to live, and I do what I can to help.[/quote]

All to the good of course, that you earn your daily bread and help others as the occasions arise and as you are able at the time to help others. In such a life you contribute to the healthy community ecology in which you live. You could do otherwise -- like, " help only yourself by taking cash from social services and "do nothing to help anyone".

I think Un is right to be suspicious about the idea, which, in effect and regardless of intention, is just another way to enmesh humans in a utilitarian grid of an increasingly administered world. — StreetlightX

It is astonishing that you find an effort to assess "the degree to which people in a community contribute to one another's wellbeing" as a plot to further dehumanize the world.

The very idea of social capital plays right into a strategy of increased psychic pressure and debilitation: not only your bills, family, food, and employment do you have to worry about, but so too your 'social capital'. It's another chapter in the fragmentation of the human psyche. — StreetlightX

Assessing the "wholesomeness" and "social vitality" of communities is another chapter in the fragmentation of the human psyche? Asking about mutual assistance contributes to anomie?

What planet are you living on?

Hey, to the best of my knowledge, Akanthinos, you weren't singled out by the CIA as either a particularly tragic or unusually fine specimen of social capital. In fact, it isn't an individual issue. The kind of capital we are talking about here is social, not individual, and it isn't measured in dollars at all.

Why the hell should I tolerate that someone calls me "poor" in Social Capital just because I never speak to my family? — Akanthinos

Nobody called you poor in social capital, because it isn't an individual issue. "Ecology" isn't about one particular weed amongst the nice flowers, it's about all the plants, weeds, flowers, trees, crops, bushes, grass, bacteria in the soil, worms, birds, and gophers all grouped together and measured en masse. Similarly, social capital is about all the people in the community, not the case histories of each individual.

If nobody in your county of residence speaks to their family, they have one hell of a deficit. If you don't speak to your family, it's statistically irrelevant.


So why don't you talk to your family?

& It is evident that you live in a county with solid social capital. You may have chosen to live there (as opposed to being raised there, but you weren't raised in a behavioral sink, either) and you may not be the "backbone" of the community but you are, I bet, a piece of a vertebrae.

A lot of places are very poor in social capital. You could live in a neighborhood where there was always trash in the street because your neighbors left it there. You could live in a community where property crime is endemic. You could live in a town where the police are corrupt, and nobody much cares. You could live where most male children will have arrest records by adulthood. You could live in a village where out-of-wedlock children are the rule--women with maybe 5 children and no regular partner, let alone a husband. You could live in a neighborhood where junked cars stay where they died for months at a stretch. You could live in a neighborhood without a fire department, volunteer or otherwise.

Social capital makes a big difference in everyone's lives.

It's using a monetary term to describe a non-monetary phenomenon. Just because somebody says "put your money where your mouth is" doesn't mean that he or she is referencing anything financial. Or "the money shot" doesn't mean that some guy is ejaculating dollars.

Social capital, like the term or not, is important vital to our future.

I hope we can get a worthwhile discussion going here.

"Social capital" — unenlightened

Your hostility towards the term indicates poverty of the same kind.

They are so public and have the ability to shape how people see their physical and social worlds. — T Clark

Exactly. And the opposite is true too--neighborhoods of ticky-tacky dreck with too much traffic, dirt, and dilapidation, where decay is slithering in around the edges. Sinks. Places where one feels an urge to let loose a big berserker caterpillar to devastate block after block -- just chewing its way through the architectural manure pile.

I would, of course, say what I said and you would, of course, say what you said, and we'll keep saying it most likely, because we are both ideologues. In saying that, I don't view you as any kind of enemy ideologue plotting an end run around my Maginot Line.

You are more the type to lay a siege and employ a trebuchet to hurl depressing texts over my high walls which do, over time, minutely undermine the enthusiasm to go on living of those whose viewpoints are subject to your bombardment. I, on the other hand, project positive sounding non-inferential dramas on my walls, which lure your troops into thinking that life might possibly, perhaps, be at least slightly worthwhile, after all.

Both of us can rest, assured that nobody is much persuaded by anything we say. Hell, they're not even listening, the sons of bitches.

Alas.

The People are in la la land. "If you aren't depressed it is only because you aren't paying attention" Snark the Great said.

We live in a time of "peak ideology" -- at least as far as the frequency of "ideology" in print.

(Google ngram)

'Ideology' has become a derogatory term, a brickbat thrown at one's opposition.

a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. "the ideology of republicanism"
synonyms: beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, ethics, morals; More the ideas and manner of thinking characteristic of a group, social class, or individual.
"a critique of bourgeois ideology"
archaic
visionary speculation, especially of an unrealistic or idealistic nature.
the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature. — Dictionary

Too bad it went sour, because it would otherwise be a useful word, to describe the necessary set of ideas and ideals one needs to organize one's life.

Usually ideology becomes a Maginot Line when a 'closed mind' is at work. But like the actual Maginot Line, ideology isn't a very good bulwark against one's enemies. Ideology makes one's world seem deceptively secure, and it is as long as one's enemies attack where they are supposed to, and not do an end run around one's defenses.

I find my enemies doing end runs around my ideological defenses all the time -- it's really quite annoying. Worse, they are aided by my stupid bleeding heart allies.

Philosophy should help. It really should, but it sometimes fails. Pulling in your other thread about desire, human emotions trump rational thought a good share of the time. Philosophers rely too much on the good offices of rationality. Everyone likes rationality, of course, as long as it is congenial to one's desires.

The many desires, the many powerful emotions of the animal overwhelm rationality with regularity, and it isn't enough to say we should be more rational. Ideology plus praxis is the kind of discipline we need. Lest the image of troops goose stepping along the streets of Nuremberg come to mind, that's not the kind of praxis I have in mind.

I was thinking more of the the kind of practice the ordinary good citizen deploys: volunteering time to local needs, helping neighbors in need, staying on the job and supporting one's self and family--and staying in the family, as well. Keeping informed of what is going on in the world; tending one's garden, all that stuff ordinary good citizens do.

The ordinary citizen ideologue knows that emotions do boil over at times, and either arranges a good time and place to expend the head of steam (maybe swimming laps or chopping wood) or finds a way of sublimating ones emotions for the good of civilization--a necessary and usually thankless task.

I don't know WHY we have consciousness, and I don't know HOW either. Probably nobody else does either, at this point. My guess is that consciousness has developed over time and that we are NOT the only creatures on earth who have consciousness. Probably Fido doesn't have as much consciousness as I do, and is almost certainly not conscious of his having consciousness, but he seems to interact with me as an at least somewhat conscious being.

Is our having consciousness a hard problem? I don't think so, but then I'm not a serious philosopher--or a psychologist either. If we weren't conscious it wouldn't be a problem at all. All I know is that a lot of smart people have been chipping away at this question and haven't so far come up with much. It may be that we can't.

There are more serious philosophers who will give you a run for your money. They'll be along shortly.

The good stuff of social capital comes from individuals in the form of their parenting, community activity, support of schools, all that. Their good contributions are given to children, neighbors, organizations, etc.

What I mean by the to and from bit, is "How do individuals who don't have much social capital get it now as adults?" It obviously isn't a cash payment or something that is in question. It's the experience of neighboring, mutual assistance with ordinary tasks, volunteering, going to meetings (and being constructive, of course), stuff like that.

Those who have not done these things may not know how. How do we teach them "how". (Obviously, you invite them to meetings, you help them shovel their walk if they can't, you invite them to block parties--blah, blah, blah. But people who don't have this kind of capital don't necessarily know what to do with what is offered them. One has to pass it on, give what one has received. That's the difficult part to teach.)

We can aim high, but what do we load the cannon with?

The George Washington Bridge -- under construction, I think... Margaret, again.