Uh, yeah… forests. That’s what we’re talking about.

“Given the fragility of the simplified production forest, the massive outside intervention that was required to testablish it… is increasingly necessary in order to sustain it as well.”
-James Scott, Seeing Like A State

Supremely… something

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Harbinger of Social Dysfunction

James Howard Kunstler recently posted a warning about a serious threat to American society.  Try to guess.
It isn’t one of the usual dangers he beats on – not sprawl, or oil, not your Chevy.
No, the latest JHK “harbinger of social dysfunction” is… tattoos.  I wish I were kidding you.  I wish he were kidding us, [...]

Hey! That’s my project!

You bastards.
See also: these people at IBM who have access to data that could spawn a million dissertations.
More on that HBS piece to follow, as comparing real networks to formal organizational structure makes me feel funny inside.

Show me your ballot box, baby

One of the advantages of being an electoral grunt is that I get to see the election as a whole, rather than just seeing a particular polling station.  I know what 1,000 AVC Advantages look like (ugly and stupid); the disturbing frequency with which their printers jam, turning your paper trail into a scorched black [...]

Snooty Physicists

Courtesy of Teppo at orgtheory.net, a  certain physicist dumping on the social sciences.  I realize this is a tired critique, but it is really persistent, so it either hasn’t been properly answered by social scientists (unpossible!) or it pokes us at a weak spot in the armor.  Or both.
Feynman’s main criticism here is that the [...]

Keeping your democracy safe

To date, I have defended our blessed democracy against:

1 missing detent
1 mismatched key
2 locks without keys
112 primary-related cards
Several hundred pounds of paper
3 terrorists
1 ninja

Of course, most of my job consists of moving voting machines from one place to another, or humping the big ones to get them into just the right position (yes, humping).  I [...]

Back up in your RSS with the resurrection

Yeah, I’m still here.
It’s very strange to sitting at home while my academic colleagues are being bombarded.  Inundated.  Drowned.  It’s not that I don’t have work to do – I have a thesis to finish and a number of research projects to work on – it’s just that, without a job, without An Office, I [...]

Revolution! (and other meaningless bullshit)

I attended my first real, full-on political rally and march today.  I was there as an observer – and thank God, because I would have died of shame to be associated with these buffoons.  I did, however, learn some lessons (none of which I’m backing with sociological evidence, so if you read this and actually [...]

The Desperation of No Ties

I live in Denver now.
I used to understand why people don’t just move to improve their economic situation.  It’s hard to find jobs outside of your area, you’re leaving behind your social network and all the support it entails, it costs a lot more to move than most people think.  But now that I am [...]