MEMBER MONDAY

In his novel Humboldt's Gift, Saul Bellow described the onset of fame, "I experienced the high voltage of publicity. It was like picking up a dangerous wire fatal to ordinary folk. It was like the rattlesnake handled by hillbillies in a state of religious exaltation."

Our MM 2/15/18 Glory Days discussion centered around MM lunch guest Brad Lidge -- the close-out pitcher to win the final game for the Phillies in the World Series on October 29, 2008 -- who so ably managed to handle the rattlesnake as he parlayed his fame (most certainly in Philadelphia) into a solid career and the pursuit of studies and interests far afield from that which had made him famous. More often than not, though, are the stories of those athletes, rock stars, starlets who succumb to the addiction, alienation, depression, and self-destruction under the glare.

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(This is an experiment, of sorts i.e. the selection of a discussion topic that floats outside the mainstream but of possible interest to a subset of participants who might bring their expertise and/or independent research to the table . . . . if there is such an interest, we will look forward to an enlightening discussion; if not, I’ll enjoy the lunch hour talking to myself)

The so-called Triffin paradox: a national currency that additionally functions as a global reserve will inevitably lead to a conflict between that country’s short-term economic interests and long-term international objectives. Stated differently, no country whose currency is the global reserve can pretend to operate as a closed domestic system.

The fact we have pretended otherwise may be key to unlocking the mystery why so many things have seemed off-kilter…

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Some years ago, Member Monday took a deep dive into the world of Psilocybin, particularly its non-recreational application to substantially reduce the anxiety and depression attendant to the terminal patient’s impending death. As we discussed at the time:

Psilocybin -- the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms -- is enjoying quite a rehabilitation of reputation these days. Once the subject of Timothy Leary's counterculture playground and Nixon's anti-drug vendetta, it has found its way into the research labs at Johns Hopkins, NYU, and the Imperial College in London (MM 7/24/17 Hallucinogens).

Our upcoming discussion will go beyond the confines of the strictly medical world as we open ourselves up to investigate what might be termed the whole-life application, which will include the very recent experience of our lead participant, fresh off a guided Psilocybin event of his own. This member’s identity will be revealed at our session, along with his motivation to embark on the experience in the first place, how he navigated any tricky legalities (note: psilocybin therapy was decriminalized in Denver through a 2019 ballot initiative), what he learned in the process, and whether/why he might recommend it to others.

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Edmund Burke cast a skeptical eye across the English Channel at the French Revolution and wrote sarcastically: "Amidst assassination, massacre, and confiscation, they are forming plans for the good order of future society."

One might apply the same skepticism to the present-day anarchical impulse despite it being something less than a movement, let alone a revolution. Perhaps it is best regarded as a kind of formless sentiment.

Our (very first) MM 7/5/16 A People's History of the United States featured a book authored by Howard Zinn, a self-professed anarchist who, in a 2008 interview, sought to disassociate "real anarchists" from the popular conception of it as inherently violent and predisposed to disorder and chaos.

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Spend just two minutes. Dedicate two full minutes to really look at, even meditate on, this picture.

The picture, of course, is of the plot bounded by the Boulder turnpike and Table Mesa/South Boulder Roads. There at the bottom left is Table Mesa Park-N- Ride. Just below that and outside the frame is the major intersection with the Foothills parkway. In the middle of the picture you'll see a larger body of water along with two smaller ones all fed by South Boulder creek. Now imagine the view of this same property from the vantage point of one driving from Denver, cresting the turnpike at Davidson Mesa, then dropping down for the first view of the city. Wow, you say, this seems to be more of a town than a city, all nestled cosily within natural beauty. This pictured plot, of course, is what's known as CU South.

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A kerfuffle of sorts broke out with the publication of "A helpless giant, led by buffoons," the lead introduction to last week's Weekly. Its lament for the late, great grand experiment called "American Exceptionalism" drew fire (e.g. see "Another Angle" appearing above), not so much for the asserted emasculation of it through our loss of resolve and moral ballast, but for heralding that very phenomenon in the first place. Exceptionalism suggests hubris. Hubris smacks of imperial overreach. This point-counterpoint is the topic for our MM discussion, centered around the focus article The Myth of American Exceptionalism.

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Member David Bright does a splendid presentation on the subject of Multi-Dimensional Wealth. At the center of his talk is the illustration, real or imagined, of Da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man, the one depicting a man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in a circle and square. Think of wealth, David explains, in terms of the body’s extremities, the man’s two legs, two arms, and then the head.

In essence, starting with the arms and legs, each representing one of four aspects of wealth…

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It had been described as "a device of such monstrous efficiency that it left no room for humanity." The referenced "device" was an institutional building and system of control designed in the eighteenth century by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham. The so-called panopticon, from the Greek word for "all seeing," was devilishly simple.

A prison consisted of individual cells arranged along the circumference of a multistory rotunda, each cell facing inward. An inspection house sat in the middle. The efficiency allowed a single unseen guard in the inspection house to watch over hundreds of inmates. The power lay in the fact no prisoner was ever aware at any particular time whether the prisoner was being watched. This asymmetric viewing system served as the model for fifty-four prisons in Victorian Britain.

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Our own Bob Davis led his response to last week's introduction with "we are all ignorant, just ignorant about different things." So well said and the perfect segue to our next session. Our discussion will be centered around Against Persuasion and its theme that the pursuit of knowledge requires a radical collaboration: the openness to being persuaded as much as an eagerness to persuade.

The genuine desire to know through honest inquiry, an aspiration of Member Monday, is certainly nothing new. Socrates sought to map out the terrain of his own ignorance through the dialogues with others, seeking clarification and refuting views, all in an attempt to acquire the knowledge he so desperately wanted. No interlocutor was off-limits as most people put forward claims. His ultimate high wire act must have been seeking to refute the proclamation by none other than the Oracle at Delphi that Socrates, himself, must be the wisest of men.

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"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so" (attributed to Mark Twain)

We conclude our look at Redefining Capitalism in the context of monetary policy. No one participating in the previous MM 7/26/21 Redefining Capitalism(I) session claimed to "know for sure" all about monetary policy, whether applied generally or with specific reference to the workings of the Federal Reserve. We shall continue to approach the subject with what the Buddhists refer to as a beginner's mind.

The Power Of The Fed documentary from the previous session raised as many questions as it answered about how the Fed operates and the resulting real-world effects. The Fed seems intent, despite its vow of transparency, to work in the shadows. Let us thus share our understandings and perspectives of the Fed as we attempt a further dive into the Rabbit Hole

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A few terms might pop up when discussing the Federal Reserve: opaque; unaccountable; conflicted; powerful. Perhaps it is all those things. Perhaps all those things are as they were intended.

Many of us certainly recall the opacity a couple of decades ago when then-Chairman Greenspan, using so-called FedSpeak, communicated largely via a word salad of insider terms. The cross-eyed audience largely dealt with the obfuscation by simply dubbing him some kind of oracle and moving on. Or, to paraphrase Mark Twain, it just seemed easier at the time to keep your mouth shut and appear clueless than open it and remove all doubt. The obfuscation continues.

We may discuss what few today even recognize: that the Fed, established by Congress in 1913, is actually a creature of the private banking sector and that its leadership ever since has been insulated from the indignity of a public vote. It proclaims transparency even as it vigorously rallies forces to thwart any attempt to peek under the covers. Just leave the conflicts of interest to your imagination.

The Fed's power, then, lies in its largely unfettered ability to create money and to regulate interest rates. Up for discussion:

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Some years ago, in our session on Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales, we discussed the body's natural physiological response when life is on the line: the amygdala detects danger; the adrenal glands kick in; catecholamines constrict blood vessels and affect the firing of nerve cells; the adrenal cortex releases cortisol, invading the hippocampus, amping up fear and affecting the memory system; heart rate rises; breathing speeds up; sugar is dumped into the metabolic system; the oxygen and nutrients distribution shifts for immediate strength -- you're on afterburner and all this occurs before you can even “think.”

So many accidents, so little time: rafting; flying; climbing; adrift at sea; even a walk in the woods. The very term adventure, almost by definition, suggests danger, voluntarily faced. The activities cited in the book range in risk from the barely foreseeable to the patently suicidal. The threshold question, then, is what might even trigger the initial decision to undertake the risk in the first place e.g. the snowmobiler taking a run at the slope that any rational analysis would deem to be an invitation to an avalanche. Perhaps the answer lies in the Evel Knievel philosophy that life takes on meaning only in its relation to death.

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You find yourself trying to communicate with a stranger whose English is a second language. You know what you want to get across. You speak. Stranger's mute response is a look of complete bewilderment. But you know what to do. You just speak louder.

Our focus piece is the story of a splintered America locked in shared incomprehension (Four Americas). Each of the four Americas comes with its own history, its own narrative, its own language of sorts. The magic of this long yet very approachable article lies in the description of each constituent tribe along with the interplay among this dog's breakfast of life perspectives.

We've discussed these respective Americas before and, at the risk of vastly oversimplifying the comprehensive descriptions served up in the focus article, they are:

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In a country beset by identity politics it seems as though the common denominator among many such disparate identities is rooted in victimhood. In such a polarized nation, our focus article (Why People Feel Like Victims) would suggest, victimhood is "a badge of honor . . and gives people strength."

We will discuss the research behind the assertion that this form of claimed and/or exaggerated victimhood "has aggression inside it, a lack of empathy and rumination" and serves to elevate the moral status status of the claimant and becomes self-reinforcing such that "the more you feel like the victim, the more you extend those feelings to all your interpersonal relationships."

The threshold question is whether this phenomenon, with its very own label, “Tendency toward Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV),” is best described as a personality disorder, a mere cultural tendency exhibited by “normal” people, or a cynical device to further political agendas.

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“To meet complaint with unrequested council earns for the advisor a fortune of hidden contempt" -- Greek proverb

Here's some unsolicited advice: check your own ego at the door before presuming to offer counsel to someone else. Telltale signs of a compromised ego on the part of the advice-giver include an increased feeling of power, disguised criticism, masked control, or grandiose self-perception. Heal thyself.

Even assuming the purity of the giver's intention, one needs to be conscious how the receiver might hear these "well-meaning" words i.e. I think you're inadequate and incompetent, and you require my superior knowledge and wisdom to move forward and, without my help and intervention, you are a helpless victim incapable of dealing with your own problems and, furthermore, I'm making it my mission to change you so that you fit into my ideal of who I think you should be instead of accepting you as you are.

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The natural state of man is one of utter depravity such that without societal structure the young would descend into savagery. Such is the imprint left on those of us who'd been exposed to William Golding's 1954 allegorical novel Lord Of The Flies. For those who might have missed this middle school rite of passage, the subsequent 1963 film adaptation depicts these young castaways in warpaint drag brandishing primitive weapons. Lest there be any confusion about the "end of innocence" message, there's the naval officer as he first confronts this band and expresses disappointment in seeing British boys exhibiting such feral and warlike behavior -- just as he stares awkwardly at his own warship.

But, wait. The novel is a piece of fiction. Might there be something empirically-based to support the thesis? That's the subject of our focus article (Lord of the Flies Revisited), a real-life account of what occurred when six boys were shipwrecked for fifteen months. Their reported positive experience -- including assigned duties, self-imposed time-outs, daily song and prayer -- would seem to undercut Golding's cynical view of mankind. Let those opposing views frame our discussion.

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We'd taken a stab in previous Member Monday sessions at defining this complex animal we call a human being. Perspectives on the self ranged from the philosophical (self-knowledge as hard-won achievement) to the biological (man as organism) to the psychological (a mind-body combination featuring consciousness, self-awareness, and memories). The selves as seen in those contexts are essentially containers anchoring an essence.

The focus article (click, You Are A Network) invites an expanded view of the self and what it means to be human. The self here is seen in terms of networks, one serving to connect one's internal traits while the other, the focus of the piece, serving to present the self more as a function of ongoing relations. The networked self is regarded as a process such that you are the product of an ever-changing accumulation of sequentially mapped life experiences. It is those relations themselves that matter, just as much as your conscious memory of them.

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A discussion about ranting might start with a peek into our own respective lives. Perhaps we'll share, in the coolness of the moment, those things that have triggered some overheated harangue, something that overpowered the mind only to later blow away like sudden, violent weather.

Ground zero might be phone-tree hell, "Your call is important to us so just press one for more options . . . . and then . . . . . and then . . . and then (finally) now please press six to drop dead." Or, perhaps, the trigger is some shouting head opinion piece eliciting a shoe thrown at the screen. The trigger may be trivial, the effect transitory, and the result harmless unless, of course, potentially more consequential if experienced behind the wheel.
The Stoics saw such anger as temporary madness. Seneca, in his essay on anger, counseled resistance to its very beginning lest it betrays us and our capacity for reason. Without the ability to recognize and direct our emotions, we become a slave to them. Not for nothing were they labeled stoic. And, yet, perhaps this very spasm of outrage represents some animal force that is most scalding if held inside (A Philosophy Of Anger).

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The very first thing taught to the student in a property law class is that what the buyer of real estate is really getting with title transfer is essentially a "bundle of rights" i.e. a set of legal privileges with respect to the property, including the right of possession, the right of control, the right of exclusion, the right of enjoyment, and the right of disposition, among others.

These rights (and sometimes obligations) can be isolated, sliced, diced and studied in ways that are not always understood and appreciated when the purchaser simply states "I own this place." Control may be subject to the rules of a governing HOA or local ordinance. The right of exclusion may be subject to easement. Even aside from the obvious title priority of the mortgage lender, the right of disposition may be conditioned by liens. Just notice what happens should you fail to keep up with your property taxes.

And so it may also apply to your personal property in that what you actually own becomes more defined, refined, and limited in the context of our increasingly digital world. Take the easy example of music. Back in the day, the adolescent Boomer might have "invested" in The White Album and, with it, title interest bestowing something of an "extended self." All an illusion, of course, as albums eventually morphed into streaming, reducing the album to all it really was in the first place i.e. the means for an intangible ephemeral listening experience. The fact that such an experience is now so readily available at a nominal rent would suggest the value of such title interest -- representing the associated bundle of rights -- is virtually nothing (now compare that to our MM 3/29/21 NFTs and the Metaverse discussion where $69 million was paid to acquire the bare title in a non-fungible token for something essentially already in the public domain).

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