Atvelonis's recent activity

  1. How do you keep your life organized? What tools & systems do you use?

    ~talk Ask (survey)
    Hi, Tilderites! I'm looking for a system and/or tool to better manage my tasks and to-do's. I'd like to become more productive & responsive. My current system is a mix of "mark as unread" for...

    Hi, Tilderites! I'm looking for a system and/or tool to better manage my tasks and to-do's. I'd like to become more productive & responsive.

    My current system is a mix of "mark as unread" for emails, physical "to-do" scribbles on post-it notes, reminders in my phone, and other digital notes. My problem is that once I add something to a task list, I inconsistently follow up on it. My other problem is that most of these tasks are unrelated, so mixing them together is confusing. My ultimate goal is to lighten my mental overhead without reducing productivity.

    I need a clear, centralized place to commit to keeping all my atomic tasks outside my 9–5: my social life, family, volunteering, any freelance work, housekeeping, personal projects, and so on.

    What tools do you use to stay organized? Do you have any advice for time management?

    Extra preferences:

    • I'd like to try tools designed for mobile and desktop.
    • I love visual tools and benefit from something visually intuitive (but customizable). I love colors.
    • Happy to pay for a productivity tool if it's effective.
    • I'd like a "one-stop shop" because maintaining different task lists in different tools seems messy. I encapsulate all 9–5 work tasks in a ticket tracking system. That's fine for work, but I only want 2 task apps, not 5. And I'm not sure if an Agile-like system works so well for me in real life.
    • I'm looking for something that can capture all my different categories or "tracks" of tasks without burying anything. I prefer to minimize context-switching, so I don't want everything to be visually mixed together; it'll distract me. But I want to make sure I don't forget a whole area of tasks. So this is partially a UI/UX question: what tools have the depth to do this?
    • My calendar is neatly organized and color-coded. I rely on it to remember daily obligations. Perhaps I could tie a task management tool into my calendar better.

    Maybe you can also offer advice on systems to maintain discipline and follow-up. My highly structured calendar is great and I mostly adhere to it. However, I haven't figured out how to utilize the calendar for oceans of teeny-tiny tasks, so I need something to complement it. In addition to a tool, I'm sure I could benefit from a new philosophical perspective or mental approach to staying tidy.

    Thanks in advance! :)

    38 votes

  2. Comment on Naturally occurring nuclear reactor in ~science

    Atvelonis
    Link
    Dr. David Ruzik, PhD describes the geological conditions necessary for a natural nuclear fission reactor to form underground. The example he talks about ran about two billion years ago in...

    Dr. David Ruzik, PhD describes the geological conditions necessary for a natural nuclear fission reactor to form underground. The example he talks about ran about two billion years ago in present-day Oklo, Gabon. I thought this was super interesting! I'd never considered that it was possible.

    One of the doctor's takeaways: even though the reaction took place in an underground river, its radioactive byproducts didn't travel a long distance after the reaction. He suggests that this lack of dispersion by natural processes also applies to modern facilities. Anthropological nuclear waste is kept in solid, impermeable casks within small geographical areas—the implication is that it poses less risk of wide-area contamination than we might expect.

    I was curious and looked up more literature. François Gauthier-Lafaye writes in the Comptes Rendus Physique that "the [natural] reactors are similar to spent commercial reactor fuel," so it's a useful analogue for waste management analysis. If I understand the paper correctly, scientific observations of surrounding geology apparently indicate that the more dangerous radioactive elements like uranium, plutonium, and thorium migrated distances on the "metric scale" (highly local, as opposed to the "kilometric scale" or higher), remaining mostly in the core area. The elements that dispersed tended to be less harmful ones.

    Perhaps it's a reassurance for engineers that nature accidentally created an effective long-term nuclear waste containment vessel; their intentional solution of "borosilicate glass as an immobilization material" sealed in seismically inactive caverns with low host rock permeability ought to be similarly or more effective. Perhaps it's an increasingly moot point if we're only a few key breakthroughs away from nuclear fusion, although we've all been hearing that for a long time.

    9 votes

  4. Comment on The era of the business idiot in ~tech

    Atvelonis
    Link
    I'm reminded of Jean Baudrillard's remarks in Simulacra and Simulations: In Baudrillard's paradigm of postmodern truth, the real is that which is true; the unreal is that which is untrue; and the...
    • Exemplary

    Big companies build products sold by specious executives or managers to other specious executives, and thus the products themselves stop resembling things that solve problems so much as they resemble a solution.

    I'm reminded of Jean Baudrillard's remarks in Simulacra and Simulations:

    We are in a logic of simulation which has nothing to do with a logic of facts and an order of reasons. […] Facts no longer have any trajectory of their own, they arise at the intersection of the models; a single fact may even be engendered by all the models at once. […] Everything is metamorphosed into its inverse in order to be perpetuated in its purged form. Every form of power, every situation speaks of itself by denial, in order to attempt to escape, by simulation of death, its real agony.

    In Baudrillard's paradigm of postmodern truth, the real is that which is true; the unreal is that which is untrue; and the hyperreal is that whose truth is vacuous because its premise is imagined.

    We might see how a measured CEO creates a good product to solve a real problem; an incompetent CEO creates a bad product to solve a real problem; and a charlatan CEO creates a product to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Their products may not be "inherently" or visibly bad; that's what they pay employees to fix! They might even be useful to accomplish some set of tasks. But those tasks are only contrived so that they may be completed.

    This is hardly new. Society has dealt with low-quality products since before Ea-nāṣir, and fraudulent business propositions certainly just as long. Wars have been fought over simulacra.

    Zitron suggests that an increasing number of corporate leaders may sincerely and truly believe in the hyperreal causes they claim to champion—they've graduated from mere external deception into self-delusion. That's not new either, but in the past one couldn't sell a hyperreal product for long because business was predicated on some manipulation of real resources for real purposes. What's new is the scale of the hyperreal. Now, in a world where corporations choose to create and apply value arbitrarily, with few reference points to the real, society deludes itself accordingly.

    In a horrible ouroboros, this effectively renders the hyperreal as real; the New Real. Truth may exist objectively, but it can only be appreciated subjectively.

    In other words, our reference points shift such that our entire understanding of human purpose changes, and we can no longer imagine any other ideology. We may decry the change, although one could make the argument that we already live in some variation of the New Real; that some combination of language, mathematics, and abstraction have encouraged us to leave the "real" cycle of biological existence for the hyperreal supersocial, which we have accordingly defined as the real. Perhaps this change was the invention of imagery, or currency, or the stock market, or something microorganic I can't even comprehend.

    In a post-real economy, trying to solve an otherwise "real" problem external to the system has no purpose. That would be specious. Rather, the goal is to solve problems inherent and exclusive to the arbitrarily constructed economy itself. These become the new "real" problems. But this epistemology is a simulacrum, or a reflection of the previous one, and therefore one may contrive a further hyperreal displacement of economy within it. Thus the ouroboros continues.

    35 votes

  5. Comment on Adding a puppy to our guardian dog team in ~life.pets

    Atvelonis
    Link
    I enjoyed this glimpse into farm life of a family in the mountains out west. It’s nice to see animals at work—guards dogs protecting alpacas against wolves (?)—though this video is just about...

    I enjoyed this glimpse into farm life of a family in the mountains out west. It’s nice to see animals at work—guards dogs protecting alpacas against wolves (?)—though this video is just about socializing the little one.

    I was struck by the landscape. I’ve never been to Wyoming. It’s so unlike the place I live. The narrator felt rooted in sincerity and simplicity. I was reminded of how distant I am from that way of life.

    My world of skyscrapers and traffic has its perks—employment (sometimes) and metropolitan luxuries. But I miss wide-open spaces. I miss the quiet. And I miss working with the earth. (Selfishly, I also miss being able to check out of the world’s problems, which is hard to do in the city.)

    We get so caught up in our daily ways of life that we forget diverging experiences. Enclosed social capsules, cut off. I can’t believe how much time I spend on the internet and yet how little of it offers meaningful diversity. It seems like almost everyone I know is an engineer or a consultant or office worker, or maybe a librarian or teacher. But I haven’t had a conversation with a farmer in years.

    I sometimes ride my bike up the river and wonder what it would be like to just keep going. Who would I would meet?

    5 votes

  7. Comment on A beskirted trip to IKEA in ~life.men

    Atvelonis
    (edited )
    Link
    I’m active in Scottish country dance and Scottish highland dance, so I often wear formal kilts in public (USA). I wear kilts in social dances, ceilidh parties, performances, competitions, and...

    I’m active in Scottish country dance and Scottish highland dance, so I often wear formal kilts in public (USA). I wear kilts in social dances, ceilidh parties, performances, competitions, and sometimes while traveling. A kilt is a pleated, woolen skirt traditionally patterned with a tartan and worn with a sporran and high socks. My kilts have about 8 yards of fabric, which provide the characteristic swish.

    In my experience, people with Scottish and Irish heritage tend to recognize kilts as relatively male-coded, but this is becoming less consistent as more women have started performing highland dancing in kilts. Most people just see a colorful skirt. I live in a city and often walk through busy areas and sometimes visit restaurants.

    • Passersby sometimes make remarks, mostly positive or excited, sometimes asking about my experience visiting Scotland/Ireland or telling me about their family history. There is an occasional nasty remark, but I am not embarrassed by the kilt because it is part of my life.

    • Sometimes people ask me to dance for them, which I think is funny, and I am happy to do a highland step for their amusement and my own.

    • A lot of people assume I play the bagpipes in a pipe band. I have a practice chanter at home, but I can’t say I’m any good at it.

    • Sometimes little children loudly ask their parents what the kilt is, or why a man is wearing a skirt, which is mortifying to the parents.

    • I get the highest quantity and most excited compliments from young people, especially young black women who love the look. Sometimes a guy will give me a fist bump “for the culture.” I love that because I feel the same way when I see people wearing their own cultural garments.

    Personally, this garment is not strictly a fashion choice for me, it is part of a cultural tradition and something I try to respect. (Although I happen to think a well-fitted kilt looks elegant on men.) I know a little bit about the kilt-making process and I’m familiar with the tartans I wear, as well as general maintenance and care practices for the garment. In my opinion, if you’re wearing a formal kilt, it is good form to know the tartan—people will inquire about it. Of course it is an inanimate object at the end of the day.

    I’m supposed to buy a utility kilt for a performance soon. A utility kilt is an informal kilt/skirt with many pockets, usually made of a synthetic material; aesthetically a solid color and not worn with a sporran. It has much less fabric so it has few pleats. It isn’t cultural per se and is something I might wear on a hike.

    Kilts are breezy so they can be fine in the summer, but the formal ones (high yardage) get hot. Scotland has a relatively mild climate; by contrast they’re not so suitable in much of the US (hot+humid, or freezing). Since your knees are exposed, I know some people who wear long cloaks in the winter when walking outdoors. I don’t own a great kilt, but it has the same problem.

    15 votes

  8. Activities to do out of the house with an elderly relative?

    ~life Ask (advice)
    Hello Tildutes! I have an elderly relative (91) who spends a lot of time alone in her house. I was thinking it would be nice to do an offbeat bonding activity in town somewhere to relax her. I’m...

    Hello Tildutes!

    I have an elderly relative (91) who spends a lot of time alone in her house. I was thinking it would be nice to do an offbeat bonding activity in town somewhere to relax her.

    I’m looking for suggestions on things she might enjoy, ideally something interactive but low-stakes.

    Requirements/notes:

    • Something one can do in a place like Newark, Wilmington, or maybe Philadelphia.
    • She can walk and stand (her cane helps), but not too fast or for too long. She would need to sit.
    • She can see alright with her glasses and can hear you with hearing aids, but not from a distance.
    • She is astute and can follow conversations just fine, thought it can take a moment for her to put together her thoughts.
    • I’d like to get her out of the house—managing her own living space is stressful and she is more relaxed when she does not feel obliged to be hostly.
    • I would like this to be calming or relaxing or refreshing for her. She has some obsessive/compulsive habits and I kind of want her to zen out more. Or just have fun—she’s often worrying.

    Some ideas I had (input/feedback/additional suggestions welcome):

    • Some sort of guided meditative or zen garden-type relaxation thing, but suitable for a kinda tired senior with OCD. I don’t know what to look for exactly. Maybe even something a little New Age. She is nominally Quaker and I would say a good-natured and open-minded person.
    • She mentioned once that her dream job was to be an artist. I was thinking about an abstract painting session at a studio where they provide all the materials. Some way for her to let out her inner Jackson Pollock?
    • I thought about a spa day. Do they have specialists who work with seniors? She has some aches and pains but is obviously fragile and extremely unused to being “treated.” She might have to overcome some… guilt (?) for being attended to.
    • Some sort of guided cultural experience—but maybe more engaging than walking around a museum? She is well-traveled and remains interested in world cultures. She used to be a teacher of English and French, spent a considerable amount of time volunteering in Mexico (before it was developed), and seems to often appreciate learning about cultural things on Wikipedia or in magazines.
    • She seems to be quite pleased with animals, at least cats and dogs. I considered going to a cat cafe but, having been in those before, I know the animals are not always accessible. Are puppy cafes a thing? Indoor petting zoos?

    In contrast it would be unsuitable for us to play any sort of competitive game, or to do something requiring a lot of physical strength or dexterity, or anything that would be emotionally overwhelming.

    If you have experiences of activities or programs that might be fulfilling to my relative, I would love to hear them!

    My goal is mostly just for her to have a nice time for that day. If I can get her to be more relaxed generally, that’s great too.

    Thank you!

    19 votes

  9. How do you know where to start with prolific authors?

    ~books Ask
    Hello Tildes! I often find myself intimidated by authors of great sagas, trilogies upon trilogies, and dozens of standalone novels. How do I know which book (or series) to read first? I've been...

    Hello Tildes! I often find myself intimidated by authors of great sagas, trilogies upon trilogies, and dozens of standalone novels. How do I know which book (or series) to read first?

    I've been recommended Terry Pratchett and Brandon Sanderson recently. I've read zero novels by either author. I've also been warned that there is a definitive best place in the canon to start, "and it's this one!" But then someone else interjects and says, "no, it's this one!" followed by passionate reasoning. Okay. If it is really worth starting somewhere in particular, where should I begin?

    I'm unlikely to read an author's entire corpus. I just have too many books to read and not enough time. But I'm not opposed to reading longer series if they're really fun. I'd appreciate any input about these authors in particular and this problem in general. Thanks!

    16 votes

  11. Comment on Underrated ways to change the world in ~life

    Atvelonis
    Link
    You've shared a valuable and insightful article—thank you! I often think of this parable, taught to me at summer camp when I was 13 (I'll paraphrase): It's easy to become jaded with all the...

    You've shared a valuable and insightful article—thank you!

    I often think of this parable, taught to me at summer camp when I was 13 (I'll paraphrase):

    An old man walks along the beach just after a storm. Scattered across the wet sand are thousands, millions of starfish washed ashore by the powerful waves. They are slowly baking, soon to die, as the tide goes out and the sun rises.

    The man sees a figure in the distance reach down and motion toward the sea. Then again, and again, and again. As he approaches, he sees that it's a young boy picking up starfish and hurling them as far as he can past the breakers.

    The man asks, "Why do you labor so, on such an endless task? Do you not see how many starfish lie suffocating on the sand? You're wasting your time. You can't save them all—what you're doing doesn't matter."

    Taken aback, the boy stops and puzzles over the statement for a moment. Then he bends down to grab another starfish, and with all his might flings it back into the sea.

    He turns to the old man and says, "It mattered to that one."

    It's easy to become jaded with all the troubles of the world. We are often overwhelmed and fall into apathy. But there's a better path, and it starts with seeing possibility in the little things. There's a democratic whiff to this: working also from the ground-up rather than just from the top-down.

    9 votes

  12. Comment on Maybe Bluesky has "won" in ~tech

    Atvelonis
    Link Parent
    It's hard work! How many people live in your neighborhood? Where do neighbors find themselves instead of civic meetings and events?

    It's hard work!

    How many people live in your neighborhood?

    Where do neighbors find themselves instead of civic meetings and events?

    5 votes

  13. Comment on Maybe Bluesky has "won" in ~tech

    Atvelonis
    Link Parent
    Third places aren't exclusive with social media, but I agree that the online world ought to be secondary to the real one. There is something innate about physical social interaction that elevates...

    Third places aren't exclusive with social media, but I agree that the online world ought to be secondary to the real one. There is something innate about physical social interaction that elevates the human spirit. I like to keep up with my network on social media, and at the same time I feel that real-world contact is a preferable default.

    People often speak about third places in the context of architecture and transportation; that if only our country weren't so car-dependent (or whatever), they would be everywhere and society would be that much better. This is at least partially true: it's easier to build community in places built to a human scale, especially if there are many people about. But no third place exists passively. I think our society has gotten used to an entertainment mindset where the image of connection/community is displayed for us, as imitation in television and social media, rather than by us in real life. Mainstream entertainment always has a degree of the parasocial. The parasocial is a kind of hyperreal inversion of culture that detracts from togetherness. In my view, many people have forgotten what it means to cultivate community because they have not considered that it must be actively and endlessly fostered, like plants in a garden. The literal action of working to create community is part of what makes a third place; it isn't just bestowed. I think that also means identifying third places that already exist, because they are there, sometimes they are just dormant or not appreciated.

    I continue to have many joys experiencing community through my Friends meeting. In addition to centering me emotionally, it's the best way I've found to establish meaningful relationships (friends, acquaintances) in the neighborhood/city. I truly did not realize it was possible to this extent. My meeting has been proactively reimagining its culture, offering space for comfort and connection while retaining its traditions. It has been interesting to watch over the last few years. Worships, retreats, potlucks, family events, and generous mutual aid all bring people together. I love to listen in meeting, hearing the silence and the togetherness. Even in meeting for business, you wouldn't think listening to a financial audit would be joyful... but it is so much more engaging to hear that communal funds are being prudently managed and spent to heal meeting members in the hospital, to help others navigate Medicare, to house Friends in need, to offer meals to low-income neighbors, and to support education.

    I have been amazed to find previously invisible "third places" appear as a result of this community where I didn't expect. For instance, the used bookstore up the street was just some store until it was the workplace of a Friend (and home of a cat!), so now it is a regular stop on walks through town. These third places seem to reinforce themselves and each other. At potluck on Sunday, I met an alumna not only of my college but also its newspaper. I begin to see Friends at the gym, on the street, at a dance... who would have thought? Just this afternoon I visited a fellow Quaker for coffee across town, where we serendipitously stumbled into a mutual friend (who had been traveling far away for months!). What a delightful encounter! It makes me feel so connected to my town. But in some sense that connection transcends the built environment and now third places seem physically possible in unexpected backdrops. I still have to make an effort to be sociable, but having a medium to get started, like a place of worship, has been helpful.

    People heavily engaged with technology are sometimes derisive toward faith for philosophical reasons. I hear that perspective. Some religious institutions are alienating. However, I have learned a lot in my community, perhaps because it goes out of its way to be thoughtful rather than automatically prescriptive or judgmental. One of the things I have begun to understand is how much judgment I have been taught to lay upon the world around me. Letting go of that compulsion is a work in progress. It is good to start to see it for what it is though.

    I spend a lot of time working in my broader community to establish and rebuild third places. I have never found it to materialize by itself, but I have found it to appear fairly easily if I pull and prod with enough diligence. I act on ideas and opportunities I see to build groups; identifying latent collective desire for human connection instead of social media and mindless screen entertainment. I spent months creating and guiding a traditional Scottish dance class in my city until it became mostly self-perpetuating. It took me about two years to create a foundation to support traditional music and culture in my city, but that is an ongoing fundraising project that has so much potential to do more good. And I try to participate in civic life to support safer and more human streets at a local level. None of it just "happens." It is pretty tiring sometimes and requires sacrifices. And yet seeing the fruits of one's labor is so rewarding.

    Social media can be a part of creating those third places. It would have been pretty hard to do some of what I have done without it. There is still a clear hierarchy though. The takeaway I've had is that the center of a successful project remains firmly in the real world. This probably applies to all advocacy: if a community-building campaign is more centered upon its online presence than its real one, it is likely to decline. Something like Tildes is a valuable third-ish "place," however I find that it serves a different purpose and falls into a different category.

    14 votes

  14. Comment on AirPods or not? in ~music

    Atvelonis
    Link
    I recently purchased the AirPods Pro 2 for my iPhone. Without exaggeration, noise-canceling earbuds are literally life-changing. The ~$240 I paid was the single greatest bang-for-my-buck purchase...

    I recently purchased the AirPods Pro 2 for my iPhone. Without exaggeration, noise-canceling earbuds are literally life-changing. The ~$240 I paid was the single greatest bang-for-my-buck purchase I have ever made, up there with my bed. I had the original AirPods before and the difference is night-and-day. It has enabled so much more contentedness in my day-to-day life, and that joy has not gone away even after several months.

    The Pros are light, portable, and flawlessly cancel all sorts of ambient noise immediately. I live in a city and the active "noise cancellation" feature on the Pros all but perfectly suppresses the relentless traffic rumbles and honks, subway train screeching, truck unloading, blasting music, and even construction activity. (If you're right next to a jackhammer, you can still hear it, but it's greatly muffled.) They effectively reduce the sounds of crying babies and unruly groups of teenagers. It's serene. Airplanes are suddenly an order of magnitude more pleasant. I've never found Amtrak trains to be loud, but they make it even quieter. They work while I walk, run, cycle; when I yawn, chew, move my head. The charging time is rapid and the battery life is remarkably long. It's also better for my hearing, because I don't have to drown out the rest of the world just to hear my music.

    The "adaptive" and "transparent" modes are also amazing and I use them frequently when walking around. In general, I like to hear a little bit of my surroundings, even if it's heavy traffic, for general safety/awareness. These modes do a wonderful job of muting the worst of the ambient noises while letting me hear conversations and approaching vehicles. Even if the Pros are in the "off" mode, the tips create a nice enough seal that it's as effective as wearing earplugs.

    I found that the AirPods fit my ears nicely. You're given four sizes of tips. I rarely wear them for more than an hour at a time, but they don't hurt. You can try them for free at an Apple Store. Personally, while I have an iPhone, I don't consider myself much of an Apple person. But I have nothing negative to say about the new AirPods.

    If you're switching to AirPods Pro from another set of noise-canceling earbuds, it will be at least as good. The noise cancellation works even if they're not connected to an iPhone (I often wear them with my phone's Bluetooth off to preserve the phone's battery): you can control it with the button on the Airpods. There are probably some quality of life reductions beyond that. While I usually control them with the button, I do often use my phone, and I'm not sure what support for that is like on Android. I imagine that a couple features, like conversation awareness, might not work on Android.

    25 votes

  15. Comment on Can we ever detect the graviton? (No, but why not?) in ~science

    Atvelonis
    Link
    Thank you for sharing your write-up! The mathematics behind quantum physics continue to amaze me. I can't quite follow all the derivations, but the complexity and scale of the problem is clear to...

    Thank you for sharing your write-up! The mathematics behind quantum physics continue to amaze me. I can't quite follow all the derivations, but the complexity and scale of the problem is clear to me now.

    Have scholars speculated upon any additional processes the graviton participates in with higher cross-sections that might be more readily measured? Processes theorized but not yet proven to exist which, if so proven, could be utilized to detect single gravitons? If the limiting factor is the practicality of measurement, then would a different kind of measurement not be ideal? How many ways could there be to detect a particle like this?

    I am decidedly not a physicist, but it's interesting to hear about advances in the deep sciences.

    8 votes

  16. Comment on USA: "The undecided voters are not who you think they are" in ~society

    Atvelonis
    Link Parent
    Conscientious objectors of war aren't abstaining from the political process, they are actively participating in it—subversively and dangerously. Many conscientious objectors still vote. It may be...

    Conscientious objectors of war aren't abstaining from the political process, they are actively participating in it—subversively and dangerously. Many conscientious objectors still vote.

    It may be prudent to familiarize yourself with the history and experience of conscientious objection. Many Quakers and other pacifists have faced execution, imprisonment, severe fines, destitution, and job loss for refusing to fight in wars. If young men today refuse to register for the Selective Service for moral reasons, they face felony charges, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, and lose access to many government-sponsored benefits. (Alternative Service exists, but requests may be rejected.) When modern Quakers refuse to pay war taxes, they are committing themselves to a lifetime of harassment from the IRS, litigation and risk of incarceration, and poverty.

    In contrast, non-voters are ignoring the political process. They don't personally suffer meaningful targeted injustice because of not voting. Being chastised for not voting is simply not comparable.

    Non-voters still benefit from political decisions like public infrastructure (roadways, electricity, plumbing, internet, etc.), public education, healthcare, regulations protecting public health, social security retirement benefits, disability benefits, economic policies like anti-monopoly laws, non-discrimination and worker protection rights, and other matters that activists have fought and died for. It is privileged to accept all of those societal benefits and not participate in the voting process, especially when many of those benefits are at risk of being dismantled. Procedurally speaking, voting is simple, speedy, unobtrusive, anonymous, non-violent, can optionally be done by mail or absentee, and has no inherent negative consequences.

    In Quaker consensus-based decision-making, a neutral vote is called "standing aside consensus." It is functionally different than not participating in quorum.

    19 votes

  17. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~society

    Atvelonis
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I have the sense that the author is interested in broad applications of post-positivistic discourse rather than exclusively commenting on a narrow or specific aspect of inter-governmental...

    I have the sense that the author is interested in broad applications of post-positivistic discourse rather than exclusively commenting on a narrow or specific aspect of inter-governmental communication. She's clearly talking about the application of academic philosophical research to IR, but that's something anyone can do in some sense: politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats, media, scholars, voters, advocates, educators, etc. Informally, we can think about IR as the sum of the relationships between all entities that interact directly or indirectly across borders, including our leaders and conglomerates and ourselves.

    As a discipline, IR is the sub-field of political science mainly concerned with the intersection of world politics, macroeconomics, and sociology, especially in the context of multi-national organizations who have complex dependencies. (Perhaps some IR experts would dislike being classified within a field of political science rather than sociology.) There's also some game theory (mathematics) in there, but my feeling is that IR tends to be a little less concerned with strict models and more with personalities or personas (individual or group). There's history in there too, but my feeling is that IR tends to be relatively applied rather than theoretical. Very inter-disciplinary. It's a little hard to define and I suspect everyone in the field has their own definition. As a field of academic research, IR is concerned with the observations of cross-national entities rather than acting directly upon them, although as the author has commented, this can be fraught or paradoxical. Some people who engage with IR outside of academia are definitely more interested in doing than knowing.

    Even as an applied field, I think IR's diversity gives it relatively wide relevance, including out of context. Obviously the individuals with the most direct influence over international relations are the people literally signing treaties and enacting tariffs. However, the culture and expectations of a society inform those decisions.

    As individuals, we make positivistic statements and assumptions all the time. Anyone who's received any formal education will have been taught a little bit of statistics, a field which is concerned with numerical representations of the world and almost entirely unconcerned with qualitative analysis (by definition). This is useful because it can help us reach conclusions that would be difficult to ascertain anecdotally and presents an air of neutrality in contexts that may otherwise be emotionally charged. Segments of our society are extremely interested in data to the point that they neglect other modalities of living; some authors have pointed out the hypocrisy of the supposed "[popular] religion of science" in that treating data as the Word of God violates epistemological tenets of uncertainty and unknowability in scientific systems of reasoning.

    But positivism isn't necessarily exclusive to formal scientific observations: one could argue that our current quantitative system of voting for candidates to hold elected offices, for example, is positivistic because it's designed in theory to give authority based on a straightforward numeric calculation that reflects "the will of the people," regardless of what segment of the population is voting in practice or how they prefer to express their sentiments. Or, more simply, it's inherently and purposely a system that defines qualitative expressions of self as invalid data and subsequently ignores them. You can't vote by writing an essay, you vote by checking a box. Arguably this is positivistic in the sense that it idolizes a quantitative, empirical, falsifiable method of knowing and assumes that input is provided rationally. Decision-making in general can be done positivistically, whether or not it's in a formalized voting system, including in everyday interactions like deciding where to go for lunch.

    As individuals, we also make post-positivistic and interpretative statements often. I would find that post-positivism tries to work with postivistic methodologies to some extent, recognizing at least occasional value in objective analyses but assuming them to be incomplete and so painting them with subjective colors to "fill in the gaps" with critical theory and ideas about positionality, intersectionality, and some other epistemological concepts. My understanding is that post-positivistic scholars tend to be skeptical of exclusively data-driven analyses because they systemically omit minority viewpoints, but said scholars are not opposed to quantitative research generally. Consider our applied example of voting: a post-positivistic system might be restructured to specifically accommodate minority or disenfranchised viewpoints, perhaps with a dedicated process for evaluating qualitative ideas alongside quantitative voting, or simply by mandating that some administrative (unelected) roles represent minority viewpoints. But interpretivism is a wholly different kind of knowing. It relies on purely subjective or qualitative reasoning. Interpretivism might use data indirectly, but doesn't consider it a legitimate source of knowledge; in this line of thinking, objective methodologies necessarily produce falsehoods for some subjects. Religious inspiration and interior knowledge are maligned as a decision-making process in the secular, rationalistic, empirical world. However (and I'm not a neutral party here), I find that faith-based, spirit-led group reflection can be valuable precisely because such thoughts can be felt rather than observed, and because they can be holistic and may encompass more than just the subject. Positivism rejects the spiritual, the ethereal, the incorporeal, the mental altogether. I find that to be unwise. Whether or not one agrees, one must admit that billions of people in the world have fundamentally interpretivistic perspectives of life and indeed that even "rationalistic" people often have such thoughts too. If nothing else, this recognition is still useful in positivistic and post-positivistic analyses (more so the latter).

    Voting or its absence is a micro-level action but it can have macro-level consequences. It's easy to see how something as individual or local as this can be applied to IR. The kinds of decisions being made internationally are going to differ based on the way constituents make decisions: some vote, some don't; some decision-makers are inspired by positivistic, rational arguments, and others are inspired by qualitative, experiential arguments. Narratives that politicians use to provide a mandate for their law or tax or war will fall into some of these categories but not others. The way other parties respond to international decisions has to acknowledge the underlying mindset or else the response may be miscalculated. Thus ways of living and understanding the world on an individual and local level can be applied to IR to make greater decisions, and likewise the applications of positivism, post-positivism, and interpretivism in IR are things we can imitate in other settings for some utility.

    3 votes

  18. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~society

    Atvelonis
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The audience of this article is scholars who keep up with technical literature in the space; I agree that it's dense for the rest of us. I would interpret post-positivism as a modernist or...

    The audience of this article is scholars who keep up with technical literature in the space; I agree that it's dense for the rest of us. I would interpret post-positivism as a modernist or postmodernist iteration of positivism.

    An earlier article from this site provides definitions:

    Positivism is an approach that views the world as ‘out there’ waiting be observed and analysed by the researcher. Theories that are built on positivism see the world ‘as it is’ and base their assumptions upon analysing physical elements such as states and international organisations, which they can account for and ascribe values to. Positivism is therefore based on the study of facts and the gathering of physical evidence. It is related to the scientific view of the natural world as being one that operates via laws (such as gravity) that can be revealed by careful study and observation. Positivists assert that equivalent laws can be revealed about the social world.

    Postpositivism rejects the positivist approach that a researcher can be an independent observer of the social world. Postpositivists argue that the ideas, and even the particular identity, of a researcher influences what they observe and therefore impacts upon what they conclude. Postpositivism pursues objective answers by attempting to recognise, and work with, such biases with the theories and knowledge that theorists develop.

    Interpretivism (sometimes called ‘anti-positivism’) takes things yet further by arguing that objectivity is impossible. As an approach, this leads researchers to focus on gaining subjective knowledge through approaches where individuals, or smaller groups, are analysed in depth through detailed observations and discussions. This harnesses a broader framework of ‘qualitative analysis’ in which deeper sets of data are sought from smaller numbers of participants – such as through detailed interviews. This is a different approach to gathering data than the more positivist inclined ‘quantitative analysis’ where larger datasets are sought to gain broader insights – such as polls of hundreds or thousands of people asking them a small number of questions with only yes/no/maybe-type options for answers.

    These are sociological definitions. Applied to international relations, positivistic discourse may be related to numeric observations/analyses, like political inferences about cross-border cultural and linguistic exchange based on data collected annually by a particular government. Diplomats may propose that such data indicates cultural similarity (or dissimilarity), and politicians may advocate for a new approach to borders, governance, trade, or something else. The takeaway could be good or it could be nefarious.

    The post-positivistic version of that discourse may contain caveats about the nature of the data itself, probably with some critical theory, to highlight systemic problems with research conducted by any particular entity. For example, maybe the only country interested in that sort of data is one that's looking for a reason to colonize a neighbor. A researcher in a post-positivistic paradigm might be skeptical of structurally one-sided analyses of this data, even if the methodology was legitimate and the data is sound. Diplomats and politicians may have an incentive to ignore or highlight power dynamics that are hard to see in data.

    The interpretivist version may present narratives about culture and language without specific or direct reference to data, finding the quantitative approach too computational, distant, and disconnected from the experience of living in either culture. Researchers, or perhaps documentary filmmakers, may learn about cultures through extremely thorough investigations of lived experience. Interviewing a grandmother about her language, following her son as he goes throughout his workday in a modernizing world, and asking questions about the old arts and music that are impractical in a population-wide survey. The kind of information you get from this is totally distinct from positivistic, quantitative analyses, and at least equally useful. In our IR example, peace advocates may use excerpts from such interviews to comment on political tensions; or politicians may quote them in proposals for or against some sort of border policy.

    8 votes

  19. Comment on You don't descend from all your ancestors in ~science

    Atvelonis
    Link
    I stumbled across this interesting video discussing the mathematics and biological mechanics of generational gene inheritance. The focus is on the probability of DNA connection to particular...

    I stumbled across this interesting video discussing the mathematics and biological mechanics of generational gene inheritance. The focus is on the probability of DNA connection to particular individuals over time. It has nice visuals and a clear presentation.

    I put this in ~science because it talks about biological genetics, but it belongs just as much in ~humanities or ~life because it influences the way we understand our history, both personal and cultural.

    Here’s a guiding question: “How does time interplay with socio-cultural, genealogical, and genetic inheritance in your family? In what ways do you experience connection (biological or otherwise) to your ancestors? How does that connection influence your life and personal values today?”

    This got me thinking about what parts of my family history I’m most attuned to.

    I can trace branches of my genealogy to at least the early 17th century, when my ancestors boarded the Mayflower to the New World. Other American lines go back similar distances and include early 18th-century Quakers, to many of whom my grandmother remains adamantly proud to be attached. I know my parents have visited old churchyards in Scotland and Greece and Germany and Norway where assorted distant relatives rested.

    The traditions I practice, the dances and songs and stories I know, the artifacts we’ve retained; the kind of subconscious interest I have in some kinds of art or music; it’s varied, but I certainly have preferences. There are definitely large parts of my genealogy I never touch, culturally, though I know they’re there. And others continue to have an outsized effect of my interests even though the genetic connection is minimal.

    I suppose the act of tracing out a genealogy creates a feeling of closeness which, from my understanding of the video, is much stronger than the literal biological connection one has with one’s ancestors at a certain point. That process of tracing the past centers it in the present in the context of modern sensibilities, which is an opportunity to interpret and reinterpret as appropriate.

    It’s an interesting coincidence in my case that the cultural “distance” I seem to feel from some of my ancestors corresponds approximately to my actual biological (individual) distance according to this video. From the chart around 5:00, meaningful distinctions between genealogical and genetic ancestry begin to appear after around 6–7 generations (~125–150 years). I think that’s the limit of what most people think of as their “family history.” I’m reminded of my grandmother (for example) telling stories her grandmother would tell about her (great-great grandmother’s) own childhood. I can feel a connection when I hear a story about growing up in that time, or of courtship during a snowstorm in 1875, and so on. But the living/oral history seems to drop off quickly past that point. Likewise, those ancestors from the 1600s I mentioned are at the very edge of having had any genetic influence on me at all. To be honest, the early 1600s is as far back as I care to relate—I can’t feel the stories in the same way.

    Of course not everyone can trace back their ancestors more than two or three generations—for any number of reasons. This is usually characterized as unfortunate, which it might be. However, the perspective such people have probably also enables totally revolutionary ways of thinking. Being rooted in the current moment or moments informed by the recent past—rather than in a family tree from 1620—focuses us on the experiences and problems that still matter today. Seeing history as living and continuous can give us great insight.

    5 votes