What's Wrong With Jim Rutt?
So you know who Jim Rutt is? Good for you. Most people don't.
The following was inspired by a recent episode of The Jim Rutt Show: Currents 081: Layman Pascal Interviews Jim Rutt on Twitter as Collective Intelligence
“Just knowing you don't have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn - and those are all good things.” – Dick Van Dyke
The Jim Rutt Show launched four years ago and published 273 episodes to date. His show ranks within the top three hundred shows worldwide in the science category. According to Podtail, the show's most-played episode is EP11 Dave Snowden and Systems Thinking, and his most popular show is EP17 – Bonnitta Roy on Process Thinking and Complexity.
Jim Rutt has a Facebook page with roughly 3.1K followers. He also has a bespoke platform for his Game-B initiative that wants to improve the world by going beyond the so-called Game-A/Game Theoretic ideologies entailing highly competitive institutions always in a conflict involving multi-polar traps. I'm sorry, I'm losing you.
Who is Jim Rutt?
Santa Fe Institute bio, where he is a Trustee Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow.
Jim Rutt is the host of the Jim Rutt Show podcast. He is the Past President and co-founder of the MIT Free Speech Alliance. He is the Executive Producer of the film "An Initiation to Game~B." He is also the creator of Network Wars, the popular mobile game. He is past Chairman of the Santa Fe Institute. He was CEO of Network Solutions, which operated the .com, .net, and .org domain namespaces on the Internet until its acquisition by Verisign in 2000. Jim was the first CTO of Thomson-Reuters. He was Chairman of the computer chip design software company Analog Design Automation until its acquisition by Synposis in 2004. Previously he either founded or played a key role in several significant information services and network companies: THE SOURCE, Business Research Corp., First Call, Pinpoint Information, Wall Street on Demand, and MarketSwitch. He was Researcher in Residence at the Santa Fe Institute from 2002 to 2004, studying the application of complexity science to financial markets, and evolutionary artificial intelligence. He was Executive Producer of the awarding winning film "Zombiewood." He is a co-founder of the Staunton Makerspace, a membership maker shop and hacker space. Jim is currently an SFI Research Fellow working in the scientific study of consciousness and evolutionary artificial intelligence. Jim is also a member of the Board of Advisers of the Krasnow Institute and of Virginia Tech's Fralin Life Sciences Institute. Jim received his B.S. degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and is a member of MIT's Visiting Committee for the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences.
Here's the description of The Jim Rutt Show from his website:
The Jim Rutt Show is a podcast series examining cutting edge thinking in science and technology with regard to the future of our economy, our political systems, and our social systems.
Each interview covers a short list of critical topics in great depth. Jim Rutt has a reputation for not letting people get by on talking points. He provokes real conversations with the leading thinkers, writers, and doers who are shaping the future of the planet.
Jim Rutt is the former CEO of Network Solutions. The New York Times once referred to him as "the Internet's bad boy" due to his reputation for creative mischief. He sold Network Solutions at the peak of the Dot Com boom and then went into scientific research. Jim has been affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute since 2002, serving as Chairman from 2009 thru 2012. A few of his other projects are summarized in his mini-bio at https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/jim-rutt.
As you can tell, Jim Rutt has done many things. I am most attracted to people with various experiences, expertise, and open minds. I have been a fan of the show since it launched. How did his show catch my attention? Common interests, algorithms, people, and interests. I could not have missed finding The Jim Rutt Show, but that's just me.
So What Is Wrong With Jim Rutt?
NO.1—What are they talking about?
More people need to learn who he is, his affiliates, and the guests on his show. If a billion or so people are not interested in his interests, it's a problem for the world. Mr. Rutt is barking up the right trees and forests. He knows the difference between the dancer and the dance (an inside reference you'll get if you start listening to his podcast.)
Most intellectual influencers believe intuitively that their footprint is bigger than it actually is. I'm constantly pondering what it would take to make more ordinary people curious about the subjects he covers on the show. Like many early adopters of all things Internet/Web, we hoped more data and information available across these networks would inspire people to think critically, learn more, and value facts, data, and truth. Instead, we are more confused than ever, and people's biases and heuristics remain seemingly hardwired.
I could go on and on about this, but I won't. If you follow me, you've been introduced to many people like Jim. I hope that people from less than rarified backgrounds get curious about these people and are inspired to learn from them.
I am a hapless curator who can't help myself.
I'm begging my brave and bright educators to spend more time figuring out how to establish connections and conversations with people unaware of the things we focus on and think about. Reach out to other classes. How do we bring ordinary people on board? Many of my well-educated and worldly friends wonder what I am on about when I share The Jim Rutt Show. Few people get back to me and say, "That was interesting," most say, "I don't understand it."
We need to engage with billions of people willing to discuss our shared challenges before we can mitigate the worst potential outcomes of our profits-first culture.
We are creating ivory bubbles online where we can believe that it's just a matter of time before we are the mainstream. The truth is that our various communities are small and incestuous. I follow the same conversations with the same people on different shows, knowing that I'm part of a minor, biased audience.
How do we displace ignorance and mainstream views motivated chiefly by money? It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor. We get what we get with cash. "It doesn't matter if you are a black or a white cat. As long as you catch mice, you're a good cat."
One thing is sure; you can't beat them at their own game. You can't be a stronger gangster without becoming a stronger gangster.
NO.2—A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I belong to a group that does tactical training for four hours weekly. I may be sixty-five years old, but my cardio is great, my knees are like a teenager's, my hips bend, my back is strong, I am on my weight, and I have striking, wrestling, and jujitsu skills. I am as good with a hatchet as I am with a knife. I'm a marksman. I'm also an all-around handy, high-value man, an entrepreneur, intellectual, problem solver, stoic, philosopher, and semi-genius. My leadership skills are second to none. My rhetorical flourishes make my followers blush. I have charm, charisma, and wisdom. @TheRealTonyStark
How many Vietcong, Taliban, etc. lives did it take to see the back of the U.S. military finally? How many resources, money, and lives had to be spent before the most powerful nation in history declared victory and retreated utterly, leaving its enemies to pick up the pieces of their failed State and continue, worse off than before they were invaded for their own good?
Things don't go well when heavily armed communities decide to go against the municipal, State, or Federal government. Only developing countries can defeat Uncle Sam's military if they sacrifice everything for the cause.
Jim commented on one of his recent episodes regarding the second amendment. He parroted the old trope that having guns and ammo keeps the government honest. You might need a militia if the government is too pushy or out of hand. If your government and culture can't defend your inshrined rights anymore, you may have to defeat them with violence—apparently, the only language they understand.
How do private militias or armed gangs historically do against the many law enforcement agencies, militarised police departments, and the Army, Airforce, Navy, and Marines with their supporting institutions, budgets, Central Bank, MMT, Global Corporations, and high-tech weapons of mass destruction? An AC-130H gunship and all the systems that support it come to mind. Let's not even address the MAD unthinkable nukes.
The American revolution lasted seven years. It is an apple to a pizza regarding the challenges revolutionaries would face today if they could duct tape a few armed cliques across the county together in some form of disciplined, cohesive force. The U.S. Capitol Raid sure fizzled out fast.
When I was a boy in Colorado, I received my gun safety certificate from the National Rifle Associate. We were members of Ducks Unlimited. I went game fishing and dove hunting with my father in Mexico in my teenage years. We hunted elk at The Bear Ranch in Paonia, Colorado, long before Bill Koch bought the place and turned it into a dude ranch for the ultra-wealthy. I am OK with gun ownership or hunting when it's all done properly. Many of my friends in Portugal hunt deer, birds, and boar. I'm not fond of factory farming game animals for the hunter's pleasure. These animals don't know how to survive in the wild and quickly die alone if hunters don't kill them. That seems too cruel.
My problem isn't with gun ownership but the gunfighter fantasy. We are not tactically trained warriors who never miss like in the movies. We are not great leaders or well-led. Our culture usually puts sociopaths in positions of power due to the structure of society, systems, and culture. We are conditioned to follow sick people who are only out for themselves. We aspire to be homo economicus and devout consumers. Guns won't fix that; a deluded, well-armed clique can't defeat a corrupt U.S. government violently.
So instead of using that old eighteenth-century trope, let's grow up, enjoy hobbies that put us in a healthy relationship with nature, and do the heavy lifting via organizing and holding our elected leaders accountable by working together to keep the pressure on.
May I try to keep hope alive? Being pessimistic only means that I suffer now and then again when things go to shit.
As Game-B Jim knows, the whole system needs redesigning, reengineering, reimagining, reform, reinvigoration, restructuring, etc.
Oh, and there’s a meaning crisis, don’t you know. And most sensible folks can’t make sense of things anymore. This is not our great-grandfather’s simple world. Even the provincials are not as provincial as way back when.
How do we encourage people to engage in domains we are obsessed with, domains that, if understood well, could help us all improve the world beyond limits?
NO.3—Follow me! “No, really, follow me; we’ve got the answers.” “Not my answers!”
All the Proto-B, Dunbar number communities of like-minded people living in gated communities (DAOs) will never have the cohesive ability or shared desires to get the rest of the world invested in the Game-B movement. Groups of people are disinclined to accept rules made up by other groups of people just like that.
We are predisposed to scapegoating, othering, enmity, brutal competition over resources, and the like. We can’t seem to be able to live in a multi-polar world, much less a world full of millions of micro-communities somehow networked together on various encrypted blockchains or whatever.
I am sorry; I'll let you discover the Game B thing yourself. It's worth a look. If you listen to enough episodes of The Jim Rutt show, you'll get the idea of the project/movement/whatever it is.
The old frontier spirit and egomania can be vexing.
Please try to remember that living space is in your skull!
So what would a Game-B member do if he were the King of Twitter? Who cares? Again, Twitter isn't all that in the grand scheme of things. Every country has its various firehoses of noise, ways of manufacturing consent, propaganda arms, tech public squares, and educational institutions supported by and supportive of the status quo.
You can't engineer culture with a perfect platform. You can educate people to know how to use tools effectively. Learning about a hammer and earth-moving vehicles' limitations is relatively easy.
Why do we pay so much attention to Elon? Do you know what kind of person you have to be to cheat your way to the wealth he has? I would love to hear Jim in a lengthy interview with Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky if only Amos were still alive. What would they think about how we react and behave towards self-serving billionaires? They could live a thousand years and never run out of things to study regarding human psychology and behavior.
Why do people behave the way they do? I'd recommend you all read or listen to, The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis.
Jim Rutt is one of the most diverse thinkers I follow. He is a good communicator; he has geezerly charm and a deep understanding of many domains of inquiry. I am always grateful that Jim knows when to listen and how to ask appropriate, stimulating, and insightful questions sparingly. He never pontificates too much and keeps the show focused on his guests.
UNLIKE:
Egotists who think their opinions across all domains are correct because they have some expertise in one domain. True polymaths are rare, yet biology professors comment on epidemiology, virology, pandemics, and vaccines as if their opinion of various popular narratives is the best.
Influencers should be cautious about being captured by fanatics. Sometimes singing to the choir is the death of integrity.
"I'm a contrarian because I know 'the data,' 'the science,' blah, blah, blah (Greta eventually gets in everyone's heads.):
I have my very own Jesus, which makes me...
A heretic
Satanic
Possessed by demons
Heterodox
Contrarian
Ignorant
Insane
… aren't I great!
Follow me; I am arrogant as fuck! I've got an ego the size of the Amazon. My platform will save the world! Social engineering always works. It worked for the Soviets! It worked for the Nazis. It worked for Pol Pot. It works for the Quakers. Kibbutz sure has something going on. How about a Mega Church? Let's make America Great Again and again and again. Everything is WOKE, and ANTIFA is a joke. Oh, and I identify as a Republican or a Social Democrat, or a, fill in the blank.
Sometimes it's best to stick to one's lane. If meta-modern geopolitics from a Marxist perspective is your thing, how many years will you spend reading reactionary literature? How well do you want to know your enemy?
We all get a burr up our ass sometimes. Please get rid of it. If you scratch that itch too long, it won't end well.
It took seven years to kick the British out of the colonies. What native nations fought with what countries from 1492 to the American revolution? Why did they choose their allies? Do only the righteous win fights? How many perspectives of a historical period in a given place have you read, and from what sources?
Trade-offs, side effects, unintended consequences, externalities, third and fourth-order effects, etc. Have we begun to consider these things? Have we made questioning things earnestly and adroitly a habit?
We are too arrogant to slow down, think things through, and do things right. We only engineer something well when the right set of incentives aligns with the right group of people across the right network. Then it takes years or generations of collaboration to manifest something radically new. (I didn't use the word "shift" or "paradigm.”)
The theory of the Soviet Union mind, Soviet culture, was very opaque, and it was difficult for me to connect with people there way back in 1979. Later, when I met Russians, it became easier. Perhaps we can credit that to consumerism and a desire for global brands—fashion, if you will. For some reason, Japanese culture was understandable to me from the get-go, but that's another story. As I walked through places in China over decades, I could feel the history in my body.
Most of us are stubbornly, wilfully ignorant. We see someone standing on a soap box in the town square talking about something we know nothing about and don't want to know anything about and keep walking as a cloud of disgust follows us several meters before we are finally out of earshot.
So we have a market of ideas (obviously already established, or there would be no market for them), a market for Proto-B communities, a market for intellectual influencers, and so on. If you have some intellectual agency, you can take your pick. Find your gated community and stick with your kind, away from all those other weirdos.
Home school. Choose your textbooks and social media folks to follow. Make a platform just for you and yours. Write up the rules and bylaws and see how it scales. It will never be perfect, and it will never be for everybody.
Even Elon doesn't have the power to control everything he wants to control, and despite his loyal fans, plenty of people think he is a feckless jerk. How many Indonesians, Filipinos, or Nigerians care about Musk?
My advice, understand the tool and what it's for and learn how to use it. If the tool isn't right for the job, leave it and pick up another tool.
Sam Harris didn't like his Twitter experience, so he left it. I hardly use it, and like Jim, I only follow people who can teach me something interesting. We can stop following people. We can delete the thing. Sam Harris has a gated community for his fans, and Jim Rutt has his Game-B platform. We have plenty of platforms and tools that serve various audiences. Market segments?
People will flock to their bubbles and stubbornly adhere while carefully ignoring uncomfortable things. We take pride in stubborn, wilful ignorance.
Very few people have the passion, talent, grit, and collaborative skills needed to help create a new culture. How does one make a market for a new culture? Civilization is full of cultures; you don't have to be an anthropologist to be sensitive to that fact. The United States has fiercely competing cultures, hence, culture wars.
Old cultures are like Nassim Taleb's old books; they last for good reasons. But they still need to be cared for and improved. What parent doesn’t want their child to be a better version of themselves? The domain of ideals is a never-ending human project that will end when the last human dies.
What is missing is quality lifetime education and a burning desire for it. How can random, disconnected communities instill these values?
Jim is an accomplished man; He's done many things. But what about the rest of us? How do we bring more people into a creative culture of inquiry and slow-growth wisdom?
We don't do that by talking over people's heads and pretending to have the answers in areas that don't lend themselves to easy answers. How many of us are familiar with systems and complexity theories?
We can't engineer our way to a better world. At best, engineering, science, and technology are among the many tools that we must use wisely. If we don't know how to use these fantastic tools properly, we will forever be helpless, hopeless, powerless, and clueless.
Deep culture is in the dancer, not the dance, but how does it emerge from the dancer? The choreographer draws on everything that created the dancer, and that's complex.
A gun is a tool. We use different guns for different purposes. We use a ten gauge or a 4/10 to hunt various animals. A Ruger American .30/06 is a good rifle for killing elk, but it's better to have an assault rifle designed to kill people if you want to kill people. If you want to go to war, you need even more. The hunter and the warrior are complex beings, as are all the institutions, ideologies, and mechanisms that support them. What's more complex than ecology and ecosystems—these interdependent biological systems?
If you want to supplant the government of the United States, you will need more than some guns and ammo.
What do we do with intellectual influencers who have become annoying pricks due to egomania? Ignore them. Find a new mentor.
I'll be learning a lot from The Jim Rutt Show and Jim Rutt's guests for a long time. He is definitely not a counterfeit idea man or a hapless curator of ideas.
