on fluid hierarchies
This week, besides "Chobits", I also watched a documentary on Wal-mart, a few fab shows on Bravo, and Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice.
Watching this latest incarnation of P&P, I tried once more to clarify the terms I use when I talk about these new fangled algorithmics.
"randomized" (probabilistic?) and "deterministic" are loaded terms of a sort, it seems, and perhaps too loaded?
Rather than talk about "distributional" vs "non-distributional" (and "randomized" vs "deterministic"), perhaps I ought to talk about static hierarchies xor-versus fluid hierarchies.
In a rigid, static hierarchy, which you might associate with Soviet-era, Condi-styled static power dynamics, if A > B and B > C, then A is always greater than B, B is always greater than C, and A and B must work to maintain their static dominance.
On the other hand, in a fluid hierarchy, the statement A > B may be interpreted as A having dominance over B with some high(-ish) probability. I should probably introduce a term other than ">" but I'll live with the ambiguity for now and resolve it some future day.
From a social justice perspective, I think fluid hierarchies can give us a better lens with which to think about how power dynamics affect our lives.
If the first step out of unjust darkness is to realize that we humans tend to think, act, and see distributionally given the priors of our history -- that is, that linear, reductionist, dyad-only thinking is *not* enough to capture the complexities of our high-dimensioned society -- then the second step should be understanding that hierarchy is a useful lens with which to understand the distributions around us.
After that, I feel as if we need to distinguish between static hierarchies, which rigidly enforce power dynamics between two people, two groupings of people, or two countries, scaling out, and fluid hierarchies, which I hope carry along the possibility for change, growth, and justice.
I'm being abstract here, I know, but I have had many years to think about these things, and perhaps some of you have not spent so long a time in self-rooted introspection. I simply have these intuitions, that static (deterministic top-k self-interest obsessed) hierarchies are inherently unstable in their dynamics of power and privilege, and that distributional thinking can lead us to more fluid hierarchies, and a more stable, peaceful society.
Now, just to prove and teach and engineer it so :)
Watching this latest incarnation of P&P, I tried once more to clarify the terms I use when I talk about these new fangled algorithmics.
"randomized" (probabilistic?) and "deterministic" are loaded terms of a sort, it seems, and perhaps too loaded?
Rather than talk about "distributional" vs "non-distributional" (and "randomized" vs "deterministic"), perhaps I ought to talk about static hierarchies xor-versus fluid hierarchies.
In a rigid, static hierarchy, which you might associate with Soviet-era, Condi-styled static power dynamics, if A > B and B > C, then A is always greater than B, B is always greater than C, and A and B must work to maintain their static dominance.
On the other hand, in a fluid hierarchy, the statement A > B may be interpreted as A having dominance over B with some high(-ish) probability. I should probably introduce a term other than ">" but I'll live with the ambiguity for now and resolve it some future day.
From a social justice perspective, I think fluid hierarchies can give us a better lens with which to think about how power dynamics affect our lives.
If the first step out of unjust darkness is to realize that we humans tend to think, act, and see distributionally given the priors of our history -- that is, that linear, reductionist, dyad-only thinking is *not* enough to capture the complexities of our high-dimensioned society -- then the second step should be understanding that hierarchy is a useful lens with which to understand the distributions around us.
After that, I feel as if we need to distinguish between static hierarchies, which rigidly enforce power dynamics between two people, two groupings of people, or two countries, scaling out, and fluid hierarchies, which I hope carry along the possibility for change, growth, and justice.
I'm being abstract here, I know, but I have had many years to think about these things, and perhaps some of you have not spent so long a time in self-rooted introspection. I simply have these intuitions, that static (deterministic top-k self-interest obsessed) hierarchies are inherently unstable in their dynamics of power and privilege, and that distributional thinking can lead us to more fluid hierarchies, and a more stable, peaceful society.
Now, just to prove and teach and engineer it so :)
posted by L. Wu @ 1:58 PM
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