Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

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Alphaville
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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by Alphaville »

white belt wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 9:05 pm
this is because your web of goals is homeotelically organized around fitness as a principal node.

i.e. fitness for you i think is not a mere tool but an end in itself. your food, your sleep, your schedule, etc, is all organized around it. i suspect you'd do it even without the extra pay or dates. if you couldn't go to a gym you'd get weights. if you couldn't get weights you'd get elastic bands, or old tires, or sand buckets. you'd find a damn way. seems to me, it's what you love to do.

one thing we sometimes forget about the specialist or the enthusiast is that their webs of goals might be extremely homeotelic, more so than a renaissance person trying to do different things.

e.g. i posted once somewhere here a video of wynton marsalis interviewed on bloomberg, who is ecstatic about working all the time. i'm sure most things in his life are organized around his purpose of advancing jazz music---otherwise he wouldn't be able to do what he does.

anyway, the way i understand this, the challenge for you to kick it up a notch would be how to make your fitness life-project a postconsumer one.

as for marsalis, he's waaaaay postconsumer. he's creating something he loves and getting paid for it to boot. he gets to go places to perform and to teach and live for his cause. and i'm sure he doesn't need the money at this point
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edited for misprint
Last edited by Alphaville on Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

guitarplayer
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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by guitarplayer »

@Scott2, so you can think that when you exercise you turn your body into a heater, like a kettle or a radiator or a boiler. You could for example exercise when you start feeling cold, and cold showers straight after exercise could be actually nice. Ultimately, use your food rather than oil/gas for heating.

To serve as an inspiration (the bit about jacuzzi made me chuckle).

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by guitarplayer »

jacob wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 9:24 am

That is this problem: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
Thanks for pointing to David Chapman, I hear a calling wanting me to spend some time reading other of his things.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by Scott 2 »

BookLoverL wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:51 pm
I can't think of that many ways of integrating high-level strength work
Isn't this a sign the system does not demand high level strength? Why add overhead for a resource that isn't constrained?

If there's a fear of "well I might need it later for..." - Can the resource (strength) be developed closer to the point in time it is needed? Can that development be more narrowly focused? Even better - can some other resource be substituted? or a permanent skill developed?

IE - someone going a climbing trip:

1. I lift all the time, I need to be strong!
2. An 8 week cycle just before the trip lets me keep up
3. What if I only do upper body stuff?
4. Cooking my own food made me 10lbs lighter
5. Hey, if I move like XYZ, I don't need the extra strength at all

While obviously operating at level 7 includes low dependency on any outsized resource pools, I don't think that's the crux of the transition. A level 6 player has that, maybe even level 5.

Moving deeply into level 6, I think you stop expending energy to maintain unused resource capacity. They system is sipping on a broad set of fuels. Ideally, it produces them as it needs them. You start thinking, could they be - interchangeable???

The practice of trading those resources back and forth (due to demand driven disruptions) fosters skill development. This makes the system not just robust, but anti-fragile. I think this anti-fragile property is what differentiates between 6 and 7. Because level 7 is anti-fragile, running it is what fosters the transition beyond.

The system needs to consider resource pools - size, demand, development cost, maintenance overhead, interchangeability, etc.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by Scott 2 »

white belt wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 9:05 pm
I'll bite on the weight training discussion since I am very familiar with it.
I see this system as lower level, but anchoring on strength as a key resource. Not to say it is bad - specialization is very effective. But how does it respond to disruption? The gym closes. An injury. A baby. Arthritis. Etc. If strength is all you have, it could be level 3. I'd guess your other resources are significant, but orbit around optimizing strength, making it level 5.
white belt wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 9:05 pm
My diet, sleep habits, and stress levels are all greatly improved because I know I need to optimize them in order to make progress with my lifting.
This can also be seen as fragility in the system. The outsized resource pool requires high overhead to maintain. Stop being perfect, there go the gainz, and everything collapses around them.

I'm making reference to personal experience here. I need much less food and sleep when I don't lift. But, the strength fades. A couple months of broken habits, putting 100lbs overhead feels heavy.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@white belt:

The word “access” comes into play at Level 8 and is even more relevant at Level 9 (according to the table) and I think this is relevant to your notes about strength training related to dating and the Wow! factor.

On one episode of the Big Bang Theory, Leonard (nerd/science geek) has been granted Access to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland on the basis of his many years of work and study in his field. Because this trip coincides with Valentines Day, it is his intention to invite Penny (attractive, socially-skilled/popular, fit-jock, actress wannabe who has proximity wandered into Leonard’s circle of geeks) instead of his Uber-Geek roommate/close friend Sheldon. Sheldon protests mightily that Penny does not “deserve” to be invited on such a trip, and clearly he does, also on the basis of his long work in the field. The episode did not further develop the plot, but it is easy to imagine a third individual Jack Optimizer vying for an Access ticket to the collider purely on the basis of money.

Obviously, there is a level on which Penny and Jack Optimizer will not have Access to the same experience as Sheldon even if all 3 of them achieve Access through their varying means, because Sheldon’s experience of the collider will have more depth. However, this does not negate the fact that both Penny and Jack did in actuality possess better, in the sense of being more efficient over time*effort, tactics for achieving physical Access to the collider. Therefore, I would suggest that this is an example of how a thoughtful Generalist can almost always do better than a Specialist, or how an Omnivore can always find another problem to solve.

The obvious underlying plot of The Big Bang Theory in general is that integration of an individual with very different, more normative, skill-set into a group of extreme geeks can serve to improve functioning of the group as a whole. In simplest terms, the integration of Penny might have slightly delayed the rate of acquisition of Hadron Collider tickets for the group, but it greatly increased the group’s probability of Access to getting laid back at the ski resort after gaining Access to the collider.

Also see “An army marches on its stomach.”

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by Qazwer »

@7w5
Bill Gates could gain access to Large ahaldron Collider with minimal difficulty. His skill was initially in sales and some programming (but not as much as others). I am confused how your example does not argue against a generalist approach. You just would need to choose the societal preferred specialist field - money. Or in the ski resort, a billionaire does quite well.
Likewise a rock star could gain access to a cool science site or have more than a passing interest of others at a ski resort. Specialization in societally approved fields would be a greater optimization strategy by this logic.
I think you might need arguments to environmental consciousness, sustainability and ease of implementation to argue against narrow techniques.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

“Scott 2” wrote: This can also be seen as fragility in the system. The outsized resource pool requires high overhead to maintain. Stop being perfect, there go the gainz, and everything collapses around them.
Somewhat analogous to The Businessman vs The Renaissance Man. However, I would note that in general it may or may not be advantageous to jump off any given S-Curve when it is still yielding heavy, especially if you do still have enough life-energy to devote to maintenance and development of other S-Curves.

For instance, when my primary money flow was from dealing in used/rare books, I was highly aware of the fact that I could almost continuously be making money at the margin by doing it, which is very different than the chunky field 40 hours/wk with yearly salary review SOP model.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Qazwer:

Yeah, I likely did not connect the dots very well. I was thinking about the Geeks, Mops, and Psychopaths article Jacob posted and contemplating that I might be classified as something in between Mop and Psychopath in a setting such as Sports Bar full of Devoted Fans of the Team. On the rare occasions I am found in such a setting, it is usually because somebody who has attractive arm muscles is buying me snacks and 1 or 2 drinks.

Also, although I liked to visit all the lunch tables in high school, my usual table was the Cute for an Artsy Nerd Girls table, so I was thinking about how Bernadette possessed multiple better abilities to access the collider and also multiple better abilities to appreciate the access than either Penny or Sheldon.

Also, a billionaire who was not otherwise sexually attractive/skilled/knowledgeable would have the same limitations to depth of sexual experience that Penny would bring to Collider experience. I mean, this is pretty much why most of us don’t think exchanging sex for money leads to ideal experience for either party. A rock star would be different because frequently would already have sex appeal in the mix with musical talent.

“Freedom” is inherently sexy, so up to some level, sells ERE better than sustainability etc. unless/until people really believe and feel survival of something they love is at stake. “Fun” is also inherently sexy, but “Frugality is Fun” is not super easy sell.

“Competence” is also inherently sexy, so that might be way to go.
Last edited by 7Wannabe5 on Sat Apr 17, 2021 11:59 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by Jin+Guice »

The two strategies for access are: (1) become the next Bill Gates, (literal) Rock Star, or billionaire or (2) moderately develop some generalist skills, one of which is likely to be appealing to someone who has developed narrow specialist skills and has an extra access ticket?

Unless I'm already (1) I vote (2).



I've been thinking about the peasant discussion. I'm not a peasant, nor was any of my family, so I can only speculate. The peasant still exists in an industrial consumer society, but they have, in most cases, been denied access to the financial and economic resources needed to exit*. So they're still inside the cave. Which *might* make them miserable, because they are acutely aware of the dominant culture, which believes money is a necessity/ god and they have also been set up to "fail."

It could also be that they derive value from other non-monetary things such as friends and family (things which the "lucky" money-worshipers who have financial access often lack) and only experience occasional extreme distress when the economic/ financial node fails. Sounds about as fun as a coronary heart-attack due to over availability of financial resources and under availability of time/ motivation to physically move.

I also don't think this is a valid criticism of other forms of capital. Accessing and optimizing other forms of capital in WL6 and WL7 doesn't mean not relying on financial/ economic capital at all. The goal is to create redundancy of need fulfillment by designing a system around all possible sources of need fulfillment. Someone with no access to financial or educational resources will undoubtedly raise their resilience with access to some. But just as relying on only social capital (as the peasants in the story were forced to do) creates an opportunity for acute system failure, so does relying on only money.


*This is a criticism I here often when attempting to convert people. "Well a teen mother of 10 who also must take care of her aging grandparents wouldn't be able to do this..." "I agree, I thought you were a slightly over-weight software developer with no dependents..."

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by jacob »

For what it's worth, I often talk about how ERE (WL7) is simply a smart version of home economics the way our grandparents understood it and how they would have lived if they had good access to a few modern conveniences such as penicillin, the internet, and the 20th century productivity gains that would have allowed them to work only 10 hours per week or invest for income.

However, the problem is that over the past 2-3 generations, we've all turned into a bunch of specialists under the philosophy that it's better to ignore all those skills in favor of sitting in front a computer screen from 9-5 and earning money to buy consumer products.

As a result from about the Boomer generation and forward, the process of Copying all the knowledge that parents used to know and Comparing the best strategies didn't happen from age 2-20 like it normally would. Instead salaried consumers have to dig much deeper mentally in order to unlearn and then relearn because they're largely trying to understand an entirely different way of living and thinking from scratch as opposed to absorbing it by osmosis from growing up.

There are certainly other ways to learn that intellectual representations. People could come and follow me around for 20 years instead and Copy what I'm doing in the same way children copy their parents and then begin to Compare themselves to their friends when they become teenagers.

This would not result in a formal representation of systems-design (wissen) but that's not needed either because the design has been learned over the course of growing up (kennen).

The challenge is with those script-following 'dead players' who firmly believe they're mastering the world by learning ever more about the $$-signs being projected on Plato's wall.

In short, peasants are already out of the Cave. They don't have a formal representation either, most likely, but may have a bunch of myths or rituals associated with the design they're following. They do not need to design explicitly because the design has already been battle-tested over hundreds/thousands of years.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by Qazwer »

You can get access to the LHC and see all the cool particle physics accessing any form of capital - human- spend ten plus years studying the field and be valuable to someone there, social - make friends with someone who has access, money - Bill Gates can go with a phone call, fame etc
You can also go understanding networks and flows of how different people are connected to the LHC - understanding the underlying networks and flow beuracracy of universities or the EU and align pieces of your own lifestyle network to them - many of which do not require any money - what resources in terms of research, exercise colleagues etc etc
You can also decide it makes no sense to go. It is far away and expensive in money or lifestyle design (time to adapt to make it happen). You can choose to have goals that are more feasible based on your circumstances. These can be the same as those of your grand parents. Live a good life with family and friends. Find intellectual stimulation in those things more accessible (most of knowledge is at our fingertips with the internet).
There is an argument though of underutilized forms of capital and understanding of our own processes and how those fit into the world. This allows increased improvement in life goals. It is harder to go from being a worker drone to becoming a billionaire then learning how to replace a button on your shirt. Given overemphasis on specific forms (just make money), it is easier to do improve other things than just to keep increasing monetary income. Likewise it seems the later stages, it is easier to understand how your goals and processes overlap than simply optimizing and it may be easier to understand how those fit into society.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

“jacob” wrote: I often talk about how ERE (WL7) is simply a smart version of home economics the way our grandparents understood it and how they would have lived if they had good access to a few modern conveniences such as penicillin, the internet, and the 20th century productivity gains that would have allowed them to work only 10 hours per week or invest for income.
Yes, but you also explain it in terms of being like a University. My grandfather was kind of a city version Renaissance man. He argued legal cases in front of the Supreme Court. He patented a design for rear-view automobile mirrors. He had a rose garden and a woodworking shop. He loved swimming and boating and was skilled in both from his time in the Coast Guard. He invested in the stock markets. Etc. So, isn’t there some level on which ERE also means striving for that level of lifestyle with least expense?

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by jacob »

I know it was just for illustration, but for those who are really interested in big science experiments ...

For CERN, you can actually go with a simple bus ticket (it's a little out of the way from the train station).
See https://visit.cern/guided-tours-individuals ...

Notice how CERN has its own top-level domain name because the world wide web (HTML et al) was invented there.

I don't think the tour includes the LHC---that would be a loooong tour indeed---but "all accelerators largely look the same." A big one just has more/bigger links. An easier/better option might be to ask the outreach/PR people at your semi-local research university. They almost always has one or more "room/house sized ones" and if it's "off" you can likely go inside. Otherwise it'll just be the control and target rooms which aren't particularly exciting.

Fun fact: I have actually given a(n invited) talk at CERN. And completing the circle, someone at CERN has actually given a talk about FIRE that included ERE.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Apr 17, 2021 12:44 pm
So, isn’t there some level on which ERE also means striving for that level of lifestyle with least expense?
Obviously yes, that's what I'm doing. I'm not particularly motivated to become a farmer or a permaculturist. This is also why ERE is somewhat wider and more open-ended in scope when it comes to the possible implementations.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

More obvious example would be my multimillionaire friend talking about his “access”to IPOs. Or how my relatively forum low level of savings reduces my “options” in the housing market. Was “power” the third element? Also pretty obvious, because directly related to size of resource base(s) For instance, white belt can pull together all the muscle power he wants even though he wouldn’t always choose to use/waste it (insert happy recollection of dating man who did 500 push-ups/day.)

@jacob:

Gotcha.It is obvious. I only asked because although I am into permaculture, my personality type is more aligned (as noted in article you posted elsewhere) with figuring out how to make a red velvet cake out of whatever is still on hand post-apocalypse. I am not really striving towards being a sketchy urban location potato farmer as ultimate outcome.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by AxelHeyst »

More banging my head against the wall of "web of goals" diagramming:
Image

Click here for full res.

I'm starting to get why Jacob says he doesn't actually do this. I actually felt like I was getting some utility and insight from the earlier diagramming I was doing (the upper right hand, which was just a start that I aborted), which was similar to Quadalupe's, but that I know understand clearly is *not* a Web of Goals, it's something else. A network diagram of stocks, causality, feedback loops, etc. I think the thing that was tripping me up is I was conflating the idea that L7 is "systems thinking", and then thinking that the WoG's diagram should therefore be a "systems diagram" (as I understand it as an engineer), which it's not.

I felt like I definitely got some utility out of doing L6 yields reverse fishbone doodling (upper left, and the text in the lower right), but then when I attempted to put it into a WoG like in Ch5 it just turned into a mess and I didn't get anything out of it.

The thing in the middle is structurally a Web of Goals, but I'm not sure if it's useful at all.

--

Something that occurs to me, is that at a lower competence level at L7 thinking, it's easier to see and correct for *negative* first and second order goals, and how they conflict with other goals. E.g., it was easy for me to see how my "Extreme mountain biking" goal was at odds with my "Go Carfree" and "Be seminomadid" goals. No diagramming needed for that insight. I just needed a hueristic like "Think this through, self: in order to DH mtb, you kinda need a car, dontcha? And DH mtb isn't the only active method you have for getting things like fun and social times, right? Right. So this goal is kind of dumb, isn't it? Yeah, let's sell that thing before it depreciates any more."

That said, over the past week or so I've been noodling over how my "seminomadic", "dirtbag design/build", "digital artist", and "BEER" goals might all connect. My usual method for building something (like my cargo trailer, container build, or concentric energy recovery ventilator) is to first design it in 3d, then build it. It wouldn't take much effort to take those 3d models I'm going to build anyways, polish 'em up, and make a cool sort of retro patent-style art print out of it, and sell it on Etsy as a digital download. (Hey, people buy dumber stuff.)

I could also turn it into an animation, use my existing video editing skills, and try my hand at pulling some income from youtubing. I could also use the good-enough camera and sound equipment I have to record some videos of the builds when I actually finish them and toss that into the mix. Side effect/goals include passive income, creative self-expression, potential social hookups (people I'd vibe with find my stuff and introduce themselves, leading to future cool projects), and being a visible example of alternative low-impact lifestyle choices.

But to Jacob's point, I didn't need to actually construct a diagram to get that insight. It's just kind of obvious once I let my mind wander around the L6 yields exercise for a bit.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by Alphaville »

white belt wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 9:05 pm
further churned this especially after looking at the wheaton eco-level chart this morning...

you're already looking at ways to reduce carbon footprint (veggie protein) and "grow your own". this moves you forward towards postconsumer.

i also noticed in the eco-scale there is a lot of teaching at high levels. until yesterday i used to think "people do this shit cuz permaculture can't feed the bulldog." but they also list the numbers of existing people at each level--too few! so it makes sense that teaching goes towards increasing numbers. bulldogs aside lol. it's a good thing, the teaching,

so maybe another way to become further postconsumer could be for you to teach, or moonlight as a personal trainer, or (businessman strategy) run your own gym, or maybe even add creativity and develop a strength training program that somehow makes use of recycled materials or resources or energy etc.

muscle-powered appliances. laundry. ever tried wringing large wet cotton towels by hand? hahahahhaa! well it's not terrible but it takes power to actually squeeze out the water.

you could set up a whole strongman garden in your future house yard, then you could teach that system to others.

i'm not saying to perform these specific actions. rather-- does that point towards a direction? give you ideas?

if you could find a way to use your strongman system to grow protein, you'd close a bunch of loops. and for stretching--goat yoga, ha ha ha ha! (it's a real thing).

ps having lived in a farm... you can do a lot of strongman stuff running a farm. why buy a backhoe when you can HEAVE?

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by BookLoverL »

On whether high-level strength is a necessary part of my life if I can't think of a systems way of building it in yet - I do think it adds value to my life to do strength training. The thing with strength training is that you lift something heavier / tougher than you might usually lift, because that's what causes you to get stronger. This then gives me the utility of "rearrange my furniture easily without needing to ask someone stronger" (and with that myself and my dad were able to move all the furniture over when I moved, including the heaviest stuff, without hiring a moving van), and also potential utility if I get good enough of "climb over fences/walls easily" - I can't do parkour at the moment but I find it very inspiring. Basically in general I don't want to encounter a situation in my daily life in which there is something I might have liked to do, but I'm unable to do it because of lack of strength. So I don't need to maintain olympic-athlete level strength, but a good general level of strength is definitely useful to me.

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Re: Systems!- Level 6 towards 7

Post by ertyu »

Might be getting off topic but, strength training improves bone density which helps with bone brittleness as one ages; specific types of strength training that target the pelvic floor like kettlebell swings for instance are one way to prevent/delay old age incontinence. Just for that, I'd argue it's worth including in any life design system even if one cannot see second order benefits to spending an hour a day doing so in the present. The positive synergies of various activities do not have to be limited to the current period of time.

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