43 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
    1. Instead, he lauds the figure of themarket as a knowing entity, envisioning it as a kind of processor of socialinformation that, through the mechanism of price, continuously calcu-lates and communicates current economic conditions to individuals inthe market.

      Is it possible that in this paper we'll see the beginning of a shift from Adam Smith's "invisible hand" (of Divine Providence, or God) to a somewhat more scientifically based mechanism based on information theory?

      Could communication described here be similar to that of a fungal colony seeking out food across gradients? It's based in statistical mechanics of exploring a space, but looks like divine providence or even magic to those lacking the mechanism?

  2. Oct 2023
  3. Sep 2023
    1. this is like 00:24:33 where this like cusp of a moment as we move this from able to work with lab-like data to real life data that we're about to have access sort of like to the new telescope to look out at 00:24:45 the universe and then to discover all the things that were invisible to us before
      • for: making the invisible visible, decoding the language of the biosphere
    1. purpose as not my purpose, what does the greater purpose want (power of now written through Eckhart) "what does god/life want from me, rather than what do I want from life" (finding place in the whole)

    1. The invisible hand is a metaphor used by the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the inducement a merchant has to keep his capital, thereby increasing the domestic capital stock and enhancing military power, both of which are in the public interest and neither of which he intended.[1]

      See invisible hand as a force that aids us in our life journey as a metaphor of Adam Smith his metaphor of the invisible hand

      • Joseph Campbell also coined this term somewhere, in his explanation of the hero’s journey
  4. Jul 2023
  5. Jan 2023
    1. https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses/162-foundations-applications-of-humanities-analytics/segments/15630

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwkRfN-7UWI


      Seven Principles of Data Feminism

      • Examine power
      • Challenge power
      • Rethink binaries and hierarchies
      • Elevate emotion an embodiment
      • Embrace pluralism
      • Consider context
      • Make labor visible

      Abolitionist movement

      There are some interesting analogies to be drawn between the abolitionist movement in the 1800s and modern day movements like abolition of police and racial justice, etc.


      Topic modeling - What would topic modeling look like for corpuses of commonplace books? Over time?


      wrt article: Soni, Sandeep, Lauren F. Klein, and Jacob Eisenstein. “Abolitionist Networks: Modeling Language Change in Nineteenth-Century Activist Newspapers.” Journal of Cultural Analytics 6, no. 1 (January 18, 2021). https://doi.org/10.22148/001c.18841. - Brings to mind the difference in power and invisible labor between literate societies and oral societies. It's easier to erase oral cultures with the overwhelm available to literate cultures because the former are harder to see.

      How to find unbiased datasets to study these?


      aspirational abolitionism driven by African Americans in the 1800s over and above (basic) abolitionism

  6. Sep 2022
    1. One reason for this is that poverty is not something that people wish to ac-knowledge or draw attention to. Rather, it is something that individuals andfamilies would like to go away. As a result, many Americans attempt to concealtheir economic difficulties as much as possible.22 This often involves keeping upappearances and trying to maintain a “normal” lifestyle. Such poverty downthe block may at first appear invisible. Nevertheless, the reach of poverty iswidespread, touching nearly all communities across America.

      Middle Americans, and particularly those in suburbia and rural parts of America that account for the majority of poverty in the country, tend to make their poverty invisible because of the toxic effects of extreme capitalism and keeping up appearances.

      Has this effect risen with the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and the idea of "living one's best life"? How about the social effects of television with shows like "Keeping up with the Kardashians" which encourage conspicuous consumption?


      More interesting is the fact that most of these suburban and rural poverty stricken portions of the country are in predominantly Republican held strongholds.

      Is there a feedback mechanism that is not only hollowing these areas out, but keeping them in poverty?

  7. Jan 2022
    1. Speaking of such lessons, Wilson and John Gowdy write, “the invisible hand metaphor can be justified … for humans in addition to nonhuman species, [only] when certain conditions are met.”

      Which conditions? How broad are they?

    2. Both involve “invisible hand” magic — intricate, unplanned, “self-organizing” systems.
  8. Nov 2021
    1. I created a social justice metaphor library to help explain concepts like why you can't just create a "level playing field" without acknowledging the economic impacts of history (see, even saying it like that is complicated).

      I love that Dave has started a list of these useful social justice metaphors.

      I got side tracked by the idea this morning and submitted a handful I could think of off the top of my head.

      • Baseball fence
      • Parable of the Polygons
      • Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

      I'm curious if there are any useful ones in the neurodiversity space? I feel like I need more of these myself.

  9. May 2021
  10. Jan 2021
    1. Preparatory remarks on the concept of an invisible hand: 1. The concept of an invisible hand plays a vital role in Karl’s analysis, even though Smith refers to it explicitly only twice in his two major books, once in The Wealth of Nations, and once in The Theory of Moral Sentiments(2005 [1759]). 2. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of what is meant by an invisible hand, we shall employ the approach of Ullmann-Margalit (1978), which even Samuels (2011, 291) appears to regard as above reproach.

    2. If the hand behind the invisible hand is also invisible, we have invisible hands operating, as it were, at different levels. The signalling device at the individual dimension (let’s call this Level 1) will be the price system. If the hand behind the invisible hand is also invisible, then the HUMS explanation amounts to the claim that the system is spontaneously generating the kind of institutions (Level 2) necessary for the invisible hand to operate at Level 1. We would then have spontaneous or unintended order at Level 1 and Level 2.

      Interesting introduction of the different levels at which the Invisible hand operates - Level 1 - individual dimension (Burning man) and Level 2 - institutional arrangements (Rules, Order, Planning, Organization). If the order (Level 2) that emerges at Level 1 is spontaneous and unintended then the hand behind the invisible hand is also invisible. Here, it is also introduced the 'price system' as a term. For now, I cannot understand how exactly are the price system and Level 1 interrelated.

    3. We have thus an example in which the hand behind the invisible hand is visible, in line, therefore, with Mittermaier’s presentation of the pragmatic view in which humans deliberately decide upon an institutional framework within which an invisible hand is supposed to operate. If, however, we were to argue that the appropriate institutional arrangements would have emerged of their own accord, in other words without such planning, Mittermaier would classify us among the ranks of the dogmatic free marketeers. For a dogmatic free marketeer, the hand behind the invisible hand is also invisible.

      The difference behind a pragmatic and dogmatic free market - in a pragmatic market - the hand behind the invisible hand is visible, whereas in a dogmatic market - the hand behind the invisible hand is also invisible.

    4. An invisible hand process is at work if individual human action results in some sort of order that was not specifically designed by those individuals pursuing their own ends. But in order for the invisible hand to operate well, institutions need to be in place for otherwise the human action at play could result in chaos (no order at all).
    5. and institutional structures (street layout, fire prevention measures, moral codes etc) ensure that some sort of order prevails. The hand behind the invisible hand is visible.
    6. The economist Paul Romer, who attended the 2019 event, was quoted in the New York Times as saying:I picture an economist showing up at Burning Man and saying: ‘Oh, look! This is the miracle of the invisible hand. All of this stuff happens by self-interest, and it just magically appears.’ And there’s this huge amount of planning that actually is what’s required beneath it to make the order emerge.

      Practical/contemporary explanation of the idea behind the 'invisible'hand'

    7. We have a means of identifying what an invisible hand is all about without necessarily using the terms invisible or visible. And should we find it more convenient to do so, we can associate an invisible hand argument with either a spontaneous (Hayek) or an unintended (Otteson) order.
    8. Hayek is thus informing us that the framework of our analysis should include institutions that are ‘The results of Human Action but not of Human Design’.
    9. Hayek notes that if we confine our arguments to the natural and artificial realms confusion is bound to ensure: ‘... one would describe a social institution as “natural” because it had never been deliberately designed, while another would describe the same institution as “artificial” because it resulted from human action’ (Hayek 1967, 130)
    10. Preparatory remarks on the concept of an invisible hand: Suppose we identify an order in human affairs. On further investigation we ascertain that although the regularity came about as a result of human action, it did not arise from human deliberation. In other words, the order did not arise from human design. Under such conditions, says Ullmann-Margalit (1978, 263), we have an invisible hand explanation. She refers to this realm of things that results from human action but not from human design as a middle realm (1978, footnote 2) and cites Hayek (1966 and 1960) as her source. An example that comes most readily to the fore as an invisible hand explanation is the one associated with the creation of money (Ullmann-Margalit 1978, 264) or the emergence of language.

    11. Suppose we identify an order in human affairs. On further investigation we ascertain that although the regularity came about as a result of human action, it did not arise from human deliberation.

      Part of ''Preparatory remarks on the concept of an invisible hand". It continues - In other words, the order did not arise from human design.

  11. Dec 2020
  12. Nov 2020
    1. I can’t see a single invisible hair-pin.

      Isn't...isn't that the point of an invisible hair-pin? That you don't see it? Or is it one of those things you pretend not to see out of politeness and habit? Like a denial of reality that everyone agrees upon, and for once the fake reality is real?

  13. Oct 2020
    1. Toward a Future Adult Learning Community: If Sacra tes Had a PC. .. Toward a Future Adult Learning Community: If Socrates had a PC ...

      In this article both socratic and invisible integration approaches of technology in adult education are examined in an effort to propose a framework for future adult learning communities. Rating is 2/10, this article is much older than anticipated (somehow snuck through the date filter) and was rather outdated given how much technology has changed.

  14. Apr 2020
    1. 8 1 Social Text 141• December 2019Precarity Lab · Digital Precarity Manifestofemale and nonwhite labor, all linked to one another across time and space by bonds of capital, material object production, and social reproduction. Theories of network cultures celebrate the new connectivity afforded by digital technology and attempt to erase the chains it puts in place. These chains pull some people up, yet weigh down so many others.

      continued from above - invisible labor - chains.

    2. This labor has always been visible in the same way that the people who do this labor have been: in plain sight but undervalued. If we pay attention to “invisible labor,” we see not a network of actors or artifacts but, rather, a chain: a supply chain, a blockchain, a chain of

      invisible labor - opposition to - refusal to see what's in plain sight - connected across time and space.

  15. Nov 2019
    1. Les formats sont le plus souvent invisibles : nos actions suffisent en général à mobiliser ceux qui nous servent. Ils sont en fait trop souvent invisibles : le choix est fait « à notre insu », sans qu’aient toujours été pesées les contraintes à respecter en fonction de l’usage à faire du document en question, maintenant et plus tard.

      Le « pacte d'écriture » entre l'écrivain et de son format : le format impose des conditions d'écritures, « à l'insu » de l'utilisateur, dont les choix sont imposés par la technique (le format, les créateurs du format).

  16. Jun 2019
    1. Criado Perez notes that women are 53% more stressed at work than men. One in three women in the world lack access to safe toilets. It took until 2011 for carmakers in the US to start using crash test dummies based on the typical female body.

    2. It is “undermining behaviour from managers” that is forcing women out of the tech industry.

    1. It is “undermining behaviour from managers” that is forcing women out of the tech industry.

    2. Criado Perez notes that women are 53% more stressed at work than men. One in three women in the world lack access to safe toilets. It took until 2011 for carmakers in the US to start using crash test dummies based on the typical female body.

    3. Criado Perez notes that women are 53% more stressed at work than men. One in three women in the world lack access to safe toilets. It took until 2011 for carmakers in the US to start using crash test dummies based on the typical female body.

    1. It is “undermining behaviour from managers” that is forcing women out of the tech industry.

  17. Apr 2018
  18. Oct 2017
    1. To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business. To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express & preserve his ideas, his contracts & accounts in writing. To improve by reading, his morals and faculties. To understand his duties to his neighbours, & country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either. To know his rights; to exercise with order & justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciaries of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence with candor & judgment. And, in general, to observe with intelligence & faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

      This entire excerpt of objectives represents a very strong dichotomy between the Jefferson viewpoint on equality (i.e all men are born equal) and the early goals of the University; it is so clearly stated that UVa should teach men to know their rights and freedoms while expanding their intellectual horizons (in addition to being able to defend all these notions) but these exact points are what are explicitly denied to the minority population at this time. This is very profound because it is not as though people in this era did not consider the importance of rights, liberties, and equality- it is the stark inability of these same people to impose those ideas onto the very people who needed them the most (minorities). While many abolitionists and suffragists later on argued for equality and education for all, it is important to note that these ideas did not just gloss over the white elite mindset, rather it was a conscious denial of basic rights that really enforces the true foundation of this university

      Muhammad Amjad

  19. Sep 2017
    1. Medicine, when fully taught, is usually subdivided into several professorships, but this cannot well be without the accessory of an hospital, where the student can have the benefit of attending clinical lectures & of assisting at operations of surgery. With this accessory, the seat of our university is not yet prepared, either by its population, or by the numbers of poor, who would leave their own houses, and accept of the charities of an hospital.

      This passage foreshadows that eventually the University will further progress their medicine program but at this time and place do not have the resources to do so because they don't have a hospital in which students can study and gain clinical experience. I think it is very interesting in just 200 years since the beginning of the University how much the medicine program has flourished with the building of the UVA hospital, which is the number one hospital in the state of Virginia. Starting out, the medicine program only taught so many classes and now the medical program is thriving and attracts many different, diverse people from every walk of life. Now, I would like to focus on the second sentence specifically because I find it quite engaging and interesting that the authors of the Rockfish Gap Report thought that a hospital would attract numbers of poor because they would leave their own houses to accept the charities of a hospital. I feel many people, especially older generations, still have this belief that people in poverty take advantage of the charities of a hospital. I for one know that it happens at times because I've seen it happen before firsthand working and shadowing in an emergency room, but honestly it's not that people are taking advantage of the charities of a hospital as they state here, but instead a lot of people in poverty don't have good health, and don't have good healthcare insurance, so their only way to get good health care is by going to an emergency room at a hospital. I for one am a huge advocate for providing good health care for people in poverty because I believe a lot stems from having good healthcare. If you're healthy, you have chance to make your life better by looking for a job and making a living, but if your'e sick, like a lot of people in poverty are it's hard to do that, which is why so many people in poverty flock to places like emergency rooms when they are sick and not healthy. I think that the same thing would have happened had there been a hospital open in the community at the time the University opened. Poor people would have gone to the hospital and accepted the charities of it, but not because they were taking advantage, they would have gone because it's their only means of getting good healthcare. -Emily McClung

    2. Education, in like manner engrafts a new man on the native stock, & improves what in his nature was vicious & perverse, into qualities of virtue and social worth; and it cannot be but that each generation succeeding to the knowledge acquired by all those who preceded it, adding to it their own acquisitions & discoveries, and handing the mass down for successive & constant accumulation, must advance the knowledge & well-being of mankind: not infinitely, as some have said, but indefinitely, and to a term which no one can fix or foresee. Indeed we need look back only half a century, to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences & arts which have been made within that period.

      I found this particular quotation particularly interesting because of the amount of irony and hypocrisy that it is riddled with. It speaks of the importance of education to create "a new man", however we know that this new man is of only a light skin color and most likely a slave-owner, not to mention the exclusion of women. Moreover, in my engagement Making the Invisible Visible, a key focal point is that what is unwritten is often just as important as what's written. Here, in the mentioning of the fact that education is better for the "well-being of mankind", it is implied that solely educating the white male slave owners will be progressive to civilization because of newfound knowledge that will be entrusted with them. As such, in mentioning that education is meant to be passed down to successive generations, the unwritten irony is in the fact that increasingly only a smaller amount of the entire population will be educated because of the ratio to the enslaved people population to the non-enslaved people population. This quotation shows the naive yet justified mindset of the elite class in education administration and society as a whole in the early 19th century America.

      • Muhammad Amjad
    3. This doctrine is the genuine fruit of the alliance between church and State,

      I think it is interesting how this sentence describes that the Rockfish Gap Report is "is the genuine fruit in the alliance between church and State" because explicitly in the report the writers state that they won't offer any divinity classes at the University as it is starting out, and I think that this sentence is a contradiction of that statement. The University was built with a library ( the Rotunda) at the heart of it because they wanted to dissociate away from religion, and put knowledge first. So why then, can the Rockfish Gap Report be the genuine fruit in the alliance between church and State, when the vision when opening this University was to put knowledge at the center, and not church and religion? Therefore, in theory if knowledge was supposed to be at the center, I'm interested as to why there is such a glaring contradictory sentence. I think this contradictory shows that the writers of the Rockfish Gap Report had varying beliefs and that came across in the report. To relate, this back to my course that I'm taking called making the Invisible Visible, I think this sentence makes "visible" the invisible varying beliefs of the writers of the Rockfish Gap Report. -Emily McClung

  20. Jul 2016
  21. Jun 2016
    1. However, a diverse body of work on thesocially situated nature of scientific communication alreadyexists which points the way. This ranges from Crane’s(1969) pioneering analyses of invisible colleges throughLatour and Woolgar’s (1979) classic study of laboratory lifeat the Salk Institute to Traweek’s (1992) richly texturedethnography of the HEP community. In addition, the workof Schatz and colleagues on the Worm Community Systemproject, which was designed to capture the full range ofknowledge, formal and informal, of the community of mo-lecular biologists who study the nematode worm C. elegans(see: http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/projects/wcs/index.html)can provide useful insights; so, too, research into the mate-rial practices and social interactions of scientists working incollaboratories, such as the Upper Atmospheric ResearchCollaboratory (see: http://intel.si.umich.edu/crew/Research/resrch08.htm) or the Space, Physics & Aeronomy ResearchCollaboratory (see: http://intel.si.umich.edu/sparc/) at theUniversity of Michigan

      great bibliography on ethnographies of different disciplines