Up Against the Wall, Orthodox Ma's

commentary by Roger Erickson

Where does a lowly citizen go to get transaction liquidity? A local dealer or bartender?

"Bartender, gimme a case of liquidity."

Forget School Drug Sweeps. How About Congress Common Sense Sweeps?

Instead of complaining about rising stupidity, we can simply replace it, and crowd it out with adaptive suggestions, which are always more attractive, by definition. It's purely a matter of phrasing, and taking the time to know your audience (i.e., each other). We're all motivated, but the more of us there are, the harder it is to keep up with shifting communication channels and currently distributed themes.

So how about some Congressional Common Sense Sweeps? Ditto for school boards, blog discussion boards, and conversations in general? Surely it's possible to come up with - and use - an OpenSource index for how adaptive a discussion process is? Can we achieve a common taxonomy for describing adaptive discourse? That's one way to embrace accelerate use of escalating diversity.

Tom Hickey, in a recent comment, reminded us of an eternal truth, which I'll state even more generally. ALL information exchanges in organized networks boil down to attempts to parse, and then enlarge, "policy space." Warren Mosler calls this simply "exploring options." Charles Darwin said it's what adaptive species do, and William Thomson said it's what reverse-entropy networks do.

Shoot! We could do that.

We always do ... eventually ... in our spare time ... when we're not pursuing orthodoxy. All morons, no matter how credentialed or orthodox, eventually stop beating their heads against the walls of change, at a speed we refer to as Adaptive Rate. It really does feel better. We should try it more often, and even consider measuring it in real-time. Just as individuals use biofeedback, groups use culturofeedback, including terms like liquidity, Output Gap and group intelligence.

Policy Space Sweeps?

If we don't do such sweeps, then too often, when we trip over an adaptive option, we may just dust ourselves off and go about our orthodoxy as though nothing new had happened.

Here's a suggested theme song for a "Save Our Policy Space" campaign, to help people willing to cross dangerous lines.

"Up Against the Wall, Orthodox Ma's"

Where's the Pete Peterson Foundation HQ? I'll volunteer to walk in and order a case of liquidity. What's the worst they can do? Revoke my voting license for 6 months?

"Hey Gomer, gimme a case of that there leeeeQuidiTee! Pronto."
"We got a bunch of hairyAudacious citizens waitin' ta grease some option exploration. Wait'll ya hear the record. You won't recognize it at all, but I guarantee you're gonna like it."

Ever had your whole community beat up by a bunch of dumb-ass banksters?  We've all been there.  It's their mama's fault.  It's the way they was raised, but times are a'changin, as usual.  In 50 years, they'll be obsolete, and singing our tune along with us.