2010.11.07 19:00 - Indirect Connections

The Guardian for this meeting was Calvino Rabeni. The lack of comments is by Calvino Rabeni.

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Cal :)
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Eliza :)
Calvino Rabeni: It's an unexpected pleasure to see you at this time :)
Eliza Madrigal: Thank you, a treat for me too... ate dinner with my daughter, lots of green tea seems to be keeping me up :)
Calvino Rabeni: mmm, what variety of tea ?
Eliza Madrigal: not sure... restaurant tea, but wonderful....
Eliza Madrigal: quite *green* tasting
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Calvino Rabeni: I was just wondering about that ... "green" taste.
Eliza Madrigal: very fresh.. like laying in grass after it has been mowed around the edges...
Calvino Rabeni: I wonder what it would taste like to cold-brew sencha tea for a couple days.
Eliza Madrigal: You'll have to let me know :)
Eliza Madrigal: sorry for playing with clothes. for some reason SL changes me each time I sign on...
Eliza Madrigal: never know how I'll appear
Calvino Rabeni: I'm imagining, a few times I was hiking and then found a mountain spring pure enough to drink from.
Eliza Madrigal: Oh, wow
Eliza Madrigal: that's happened to me *just once*
Eliza Madrigal: but not a spring... a stream... felt amazed though
Calvino Rabeni: Wish I had a picture... there was one where the spring came out of the middle of a vertical rock face into a little bowl, like it had been designed for humans.
Eliza Madrigal: ooooh but your description is lovely, no picture needed
Calvino Rabeni: I guess we just get afraid of things being polluted, and it feels really primal just to drink from "nature" like a wild thing :)
Eliza Madrigal: yes... almost like a fiction
Eliza Madrigal: Could you see yourself living up in the mountains? 'from the land'?
Calvino Rabeni: Hermit like ? Or with a community...
Calvino Rabeni: Well as a fanasy I think so
Eliza Madrigal: either...
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Calvino Rabeni: Once I had a private retreat at a friend's cabins in the Rockies, above 10000 feet elevation
Eliza Madrigal: that sounds amazing....
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: Just me and the "things that go bump in the night" :)
Eliza Madrigal: How long?
Calvino Rabeni: Two weeks
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Mitzi
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Making my usual dramatic entrance just to liven things up a little bit ... (bump?)
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Mitzi, nice to meet you. Enjoy reading you in the wiki :)
Calvino Rabeni: Mitzi, what's the name of that mountain pass west of Denver, where the old train used to try to pass before they built the Eisenhower Tunnel?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh! I'm a little surprised.
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Wow I used a gesture. It's fun. (I'm on a faster computer and using the newer viewer).
Eliza Madrigal: cute gesture... havent seen that one too often
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Hmmm ... Berthoud pass?
Eliza Madrigal: would love to go back to Colorado some day... for at least a few weeks stretch in order to acclimate
Eliza Madrigal: in the little window I was there I found it magical... resonate
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Straight Creek tunnel?
Calvino Rabeni: Here I'm between 2 and 7 thousand (feet) elevation
Mitzi Mimistrobell: The climate is intense - very dry and the high altitude changes your red blood cells
Calvino Rabeni: Yes it does
Eliza Madrigal: in fact strangely I went there with lots of bad habits that sort of fell away just from sitting outside.... with a sense of 'above'.... it dwarfs one of self-importance
Calvino Rabeni: And when you go to sea level it feels oxygen rich
Calvino Rabeni: Wow, I know that feeling Eliza yes
Mitzi Mimistrobell: In Boulder we're at little more than a mile high. 5, 325 or so feet, and in the nearby mountains you can get up to 7,000 or 8,000 in less than 20 minutes.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: That's very wonderful, Eliza, that you had such an experience, of the falling-away-ness
Eliza Madrigal: ah, remember the drive from Estes to Boulder... prob different now but remember driving through clouds and feeling nervous about tiny railings...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: No, not changed much in 20 years .... that
Eliza Madrigal: mmm, falling-away-ness
Mitzi Mimistrobell: sounds familiar!
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Ha, I'm still drinking champagne punch from last time!
Calvino Rabeni: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ODDghYRDA36AHSKKBGZenrJHoP4nwMm6e-m3CzQkXic?feat=directlink
Eliza Madrigal: yes I noticed you found my punchbowl
Eliza Madrigal: haha
Calvino Rabeni: Heres a nearby peak
Calvino Rabeni: it can be climbed in the summer
Calvino Rabeni: and you really get that "above" feeling
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh, is that courtesy of you? Well, thanks! It's been lovely, a nice luxury
Calvino Rabeni: where the sky is darker blue
Eliza Madrigal: wow, so nice.... I can almost inhale that picture :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: What is the name of that peak, Calvinp?
Calvino Rabeni: Long winded answer:
Calvino Rabeni: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=ashland,oregon&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGIE_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Ashland,+OR&gl=us&ei=ZMbTTNLmPJKusAOVs5COCw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ8gEwAA
Eliza Madrigal: haha
Calvino Rabeni: McLaughlin
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh, yes, about last week! I remember now. I was very struck by the energy of another person in a spiritual group I participate in.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Interestingly enough, and I suppose tragically, the following day she had a serious fall when rock climbing and has been in intensive care, having surgery, etc.
Eliza Madrigal: Oh :(
Mitzi Mimistrobell: She never lost consciousness and is doing very well, but has a punctured lung, 15 broken ribs on one side, and has to have her ankle and wrist reconstructed.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: From all reports, she is exuberant to be alive and planning her next career.
Calvino Rabeni: !
Calvino Rabeni: Was she planning it before the accident?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Anyway it's been on my mind a lot this week - how much I was feeling in regard to her that night (when I was here she had already had her injuries but I didn't know about it yet).
Mitzi Mimistrobell: It makes me think and wonder about psychic energies, precognition and stuff like that.
Eliza Madrigal: fantastic that she'll be okay... I wonder what it was about her energy that you were affected by...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: No, but she was restless in what she was doing and wishing for some kind of change I think.
Calvino Rabeni: I'm curious too about that
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: Like I wonder whether in some way forces were already in motion leading her to that point that hapened the following day - did the energy she was opening up in the group somehow come out in this bizarre way to enable her to move to a different place in her life rather quickly ...?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Maybe we all felt precognitively the strong energy release that was soon to come ... if you believe our spot in time is more like a fuzzy zone extending somewhat into the future and past
Eliza Madrigal: what an interesting and subtle question... like did she build up to take some sort of leap?
Eliza Madrigal: but considering the accident I wonder if that kind of charge can throw someone 'off' too...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, something like that - and her courage in expressing what she did in our group was a signifier of her willingness, or need, to "jump" to a different state ... and that we all felt something that night as well
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, Eliza, usually such accidents have many negative consequences, but in her case, the spiritual effects seem to have been very positive.
Eliza Madrigal: fascinating, and also that you and it sounds like others, noticed that
Eliza Madrigal: May I ask what sort of group you participate in?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, ... to me it was kind of a confirmation that our group had something "real" going on amongst us.
Calvino Rabeni: I was hiking last week with a friend, who was recounting a story in which she was uncharacteristically angry, and at that moment stepped on a triangular rock and sprained her ankle. Then made a remark like "that will teach me" ... I asked .. teach you what ?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Eliza, I'd rather not say publically - I'll IM you a little info on the side.
Eliza Madrigal: Okay, yes I don't mean to pry but become curious about energies in groups, etc...
Calvino Rabeni: Thats what IM is for :) The "telepathy" of virtual reality
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Eliza Madrigal: Calvino, did she answer?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: or the whispering ...?
Eliza Madrigal: yes, and sometimes the raised eyebrows and rolling of eyes
Calvino Rabeni: And maybe the "come hither" glance
Eliza Madrigal: hah
Calvino Rabeni: Well, basically, to keep grounded with the power and not get uprooted by it
Eliza Madrigal: I like your friend's comment though Cal... yes... sometimes when I stub my toe or hit something it causes me to 'check' what's going on in my thinking a bit closer... line up better :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: OK I'll come back out in public - I've been IM'ing with Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Calvino Rabeni: I heard a new generality recently about body energy and genders ... from a voice teacher .. saying that it was more common for women to carry spiritual energies in the lower abdomen (womb) area and for men, the heart area...
Calvino Rabeni: I don't know :) I only have the the one side of it as an experience
Eliza Madrigal: I've heard that before as well... but seems external guidance to me
Calvino Rabeni: Is there anything like that in your body systems studies Mitzi?
Eliza Madrigal: meaning, i don't have a direct sense of it myself
Calvino Rabeni: I also found my training materials for Integrative Somatics in the garage stash, along with Experiential Anatomy
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Interesting ... I haven't heard that before, although it seems very plausible..
Mitzi Mimistrobell: No my teaching is more about giving one tools to find out such things within one's own experiential sphere - rather than presenting conceptual generalities - although it does that as well.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Experiential Anatomy - who teaches that?
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: (More IMs, due to the situation that the teacher may have moved to other things)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: I appreciate the various maps and yet outside of a direct teacher I think working within that 'experiential sphere' is the way to go... being informed and yet letting the process sort of work itself...
Calvino Rabeni: Interestingly Mitzi, the training program for the body-centered work has moved from Boulder to Ashland Oregon
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Sorry, I realized that my last comment may have had a tinge of snark - like, putting down the giving of generalizites - I apologize as all teachings do that and I am no more purely-experiential than many many others.
Calvino Rabeni: There's a certain importance though, mitzi, of providing a strand of teaching that is really self-reliant
Calvino Rabeni: Like the "Teach a man to fish" rather than handing them a fish
Mitzi Mimistrobell: For the Integrated Somatics, or for the "Experiential Anatomy"?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, those are the teachings that interest me most.
Eliza Madrigal: well you feed him a fish then he may be inspired to learn to fish
Calvino Rabeni: For the body-centered therapy school
Mitzi Mimistrobell: body centered therapy meaning??? Integrated Somatics?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes that is part of it, the name of one program
Mitzi Mimistrobell: If you feed him a fish ... he *MAY* be inspired to learn to fish, but in my experience, that's rather rare.
Eliza Madrigal: well if he's not inspired teaching him to fish seems like something to come back to another time :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I see hat most people who are serious on some kind of path are driven by a need that goes deep and usually involves some kind of emotional or physical tragegy
Eliza Madrigal: yes I agree Mitzi
Eliza Madrigal: or some sort of longing in any event
Eliza Madrigal: think it shows up without tragedy sometimes, but maybe not as often...
Eliza Madrigal: that may just be an idea though :)
Calvino Rabeni: It's been investigated by the Institute of Noetic Sciences
Eliza Madrigal: I've seen some go through horrendous things and not be as motivated as some with cushier lives... so its funny
Calvino Rabeni: it doesn't prove that gradual enlightenment is impossible
Calvino Rabeni: just that dramatic breakthroughs are often motivated by crisis
Mitzi Mimistrobell: It's hard to try hard or go deep. I don't think it's very normal to do so unless a specific driving factor exists. It could be intense, tragic, or just strong enough to combine with other factors to get enough OOMPH to get someone going.
Eliza Madrigal: mmm, nods
Eliza Madrigal: interesting how that comes back to your friend in a way... and that energy to take a leap
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I was reading the recent IONS newsletter today (yes I am a member). They are onto some ground-breaking research.
Calvino Rabeni: In a more alchemical framework, the progress comes form the integration of chaos in the crucible of practice - which could come in large or small doses
Eliza Madrigal: hmm
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, Eliza, it points to the possibility that our "entire" selves which include a lot of forces that we are unaware of as daily consciousness can possibly be driving the car (and we the bewildererd passenger!)
Calvino Rabeni: About IONS, their leader (front-woman) talks a really good line - I was impressed with her style and ability to promote the ideas of her organization
Eliza Madrigal: so we'd better be friendl
Eliza Madrigal: heheh
Eliza Madrigal: *friendly
Eliza Madrigal: I'd better get to bed, thank you for a fascinating discussion :)
Calvino Rabeni: The alchemical metaphor is that there was a primal unity that fractured, then we put it back together somewhat artificially and there are some leftover pieces outside that provisional unity, that appear to us as chaos, disturbances, or useless elements
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Marilyn Schlitz, you mean?
Calvino Rabeni: which are nonethelesss a key to rebuilding a fuller unity
Calvino Rabeni: Yeah Marilyn
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Eliza, going so soon? (Sad)
Eliza Madrigal: haha
Calvino Rabeni: Great to see you Eliza :)
Calvino Rabeni: Sleep well
--BELL--

Eliza Madrigal: thank you Mitzi it has been a pleasure to meet you in av
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Indeed, Good sleep is so important to our psychic well being. So enjoy.
Eliza Madrigal: really neat ideas and I'll read the log happily (as usual) :) THanks
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Pleasure is all mine! See you next Sunday perhaps ...
Calvino Rabeni: Good night :)
Eliza Madrigal: Night :)
Calvino Rabeni: This was a rare Eliza sighting, for this time slot
Calvino Rabeni: I'm thinking about leaderless groups
Calvino Rabeni: I think the culture is kind of poised on a cusp, where they are just starting to be possible
Calvino Rabeni: because otherwise we aren't QUITE there yet in terms of social evolution
Calvino Rabeni: You've expressed similar to me in the past
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I had a conversation about this very topic last week with a friend.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: She was expressing a wish that a group she is involved in could be less structured
Calvino Rabeni: Well, I know of some successful examples and some unsuccessful ones
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: Yes, that's a classic issue
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I was a bit startled to hear myself express the sentiment that, without a strong hierearchical structure that people are identified with wanting to be part of, that group cohesiveness will fall apart immediately when a conflict arises or a decision is to be made.
Calvino Rabeni: I can see that you'd have ambivalent feelings about that issue
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Because we really think we are right, and we really have different opinions and views, and we really feel strongly about these and don't at all like to be conrolled by what seems to us another person's arbitrary whim just to keep the group together.
Calvino Rabeni: There will always be issues of the "we think we are right" versus "I think I am right (and they are not)"
Calvino Rabeni: Meaning there are group norms and common values
Calvino Rabeni: Which define inside and outside the group space
Calvino Rabeni: and thus insiders and outsiders
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I was surprised though by how NOT ambivalent my feelings were on this point. Basically I feel that people who envision utopian leaderless groups are a bit weak in real world observationof how people actually interact in groups.
Calvino Rabeni: Yes that makes sense
Calvino Rabeni: But its a combination you mention - leaderless AND utopian
Mitzi Mimistrobell: So ... why DO people stick with groups over time? What are the dynamics of a successful group that can both keep on existing while accommodating those differing points of view, make decisions, adjust to new conditions etc.
Calvino Rabeni: so maybe a non-utopian leaderless group can work better
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I detect a whiff of dismissiveness in my characterizations of such people .... I really am trying not to be that way so much.
Calvino Rabeni: or a utopian group with a strong charismatic leader
Mitzi Mimistrobell: There you go.
Calvino Rabeni: I hear it
Calvino Rabeni: So the ideal doesn't match the realities of people's perspectives and skills and emotional state of development
Calvino Rabeni: which means the container is not strong enough to hold together
Calvino Rabeni: or on the other hand, the group cohesiveness is somewhat weak, but it doesn't try to contain the stronger energies
Calvino Rabeni: In a sense we have a kind of flatland social structure
Mitzi Mimistrobell: hmm! say more ...
Calvino Rabeni: but the alternative isn't necessarily a hierarchy
Calvino Rabeni: We have the ethos of a fraternal society - centered around the idea of individuals with supposedly equal political rights
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh, yes, I understand now. The Frernch Reovlution ...
Calvino Rabeni: so there are fewer mechanisms for people of different levels of wisdom to provide their moral power to the groups
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... a reaction to the excesses of the hierarchical society. That had gone too far ... it was time for a counterbalancing aproach to emerge. People were ready.
Calvino Rabeni: Right, the parable in literature is "Lord of the Flies"
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: Speaking of Lord of the Flies ... I heard some apocrypha; tale of children living together on an island without adults who had created a truly utopian society that was highly spiritual and loving ... and they had their own language and other things ... have you heard of this?
Calvino Rabeni: However what I might suggest is that the purely egalitarian idea suppresses the ability of wisdom to be influential
Mitzi Mimistrobell: MMM ... well maybe in theory, but in reality people can't help but be influenced by each other.
Calvino Rabeni: and there's a philosophical resistance to the idea that there are people of many different levels of development and maybe separate "lines"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: That doesn't contradict egalitarianism
Calvino Rabeni: But what are the means and structures of influence?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, one has to be careful not to tip into racism, elitism, and other forms of snobbery based on some factor that's not really the real factor.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Now there's a topic for you Calvino!!
Calvino Rabeni: Traditional societies for example had multiple generations working synergistically, with young explorers and elders with moral authority and mentors, etc.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: The means and structures of influence.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Influence - a word with a different connocation that just plain old "power."
Mitzi Mimistrobell: How do they differ?
Calvino Rabeni: But the modern analysis equates influence and power to private wealth and benefit
Calvino Rabeni: Right, try to deconstruct the idea of "power" in our times
Calvino Rabeni: Or trace it in the lives of people that are regarded as unremarkable - that is ordinary lives
Calvino Rabeni: When groups work, I think they don't so much rely completely on an individual leader
Calvino Rabeni: but on an ecology of influence and cooperation of various kinds
Calvino Rabeni: I think the recent investigations of this topic are starting to reveal that
Mitzi Mimistrobell: That would be healthy ... reminiscent of the traditional societies you mentioned
Calvino Rabeni: and to deconstruct the myth of the influential individual
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I was thinking about influence - this idea can also be divided into intentional influence and unintended influence (like a role model that just goes about their life and people are affected in a simple natural way).
Calvino Rabeni: Because where there's an influential indivudal mytth, the other side of that myth, the yin side, is that everyone else is rather incapable - that they'd be stupid, or selfish, or whatever without that influence
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I love that kind of influence the best - it seems to be the most free of all the negative sides of the deliberate wielding of power - ego, identification, addictive brain circuits getting activated etc.
Calvino Rabeni: and then the fear is the group would just disintegrate
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, there are those influential yin role models
Calvino Rabeni: the quiet ones
Calvino Rabeni: I hear there are some new developments in economic theory too ... I'd like to look into it
Calvino Rabeni: because in a way it's a deep part of the myth of our culture
Calvino Rabeni: that there are masses of people who are rational, selfish agents
Calvino Rabeni: maximizing their own private goods and pleasures
Calvino Rabeni: that's the economic paradigm
Mitzi Mimistrobell: you know about the Framingham heart study ... what they discovered just looking for correlations in all that data?
Calvino Rabeni: No , tell me about it?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: that if people in your network (to three nodes distance) get divorced, you are much more likely to do so youself ... also obesity, smoking and other behaviors were highly determined by the behaviors of those in one's close networks.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Which is all very contrary to our own views of ourselves as autonomous, decision makers of our own actions.
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: Like, I bet if you asked one of those individuals who got divorced after some of the people they knew had done so, they would not say that they did it because they were influcenced by the behaviors of others. Yet, the data would say EXACTLY that.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Kind of tough on the idea of self responsibility.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Stevie ... the listener ...
Calvino Rabeni: Right I had heard about those studies
stevenaia Michinaga: I was just about to retire and saw you here
Calvino Rabeni: the application of epidemiology to some things like depression and obesity
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Stevenaia?
Calvino Rabeni: ? - !
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Cal and Mitzi
stevenaia Michinaga: has it been a while since you;ve seen me, Cal?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes it has I'd say
stevenaia Michinaga: smiles
Mitzi Mimistrobell: what has the listener heard of late?
stevenaia Michinaga: just winding down toward a busy week this ahead
stevenaia Michinaga: mCal, my viewer transformed me, so I kept her :)
Calvino Rabeni: I think I remember that.
stevenaia Michinaga: didn't mean to interrupt you discussion, I know it;s hard to sneak into a room in an evening dress
Calvino Rabeni: would you like some champagne?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, we're both indulging ...
stevenaia Michinaga: thanks I brought my own
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ah lovely
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Well, steve, we were having a lively discission of leaderless groups, utopian foofieness, and most recently, how we may be driven by group factors while in total denial of same.
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Calvino Rabeni: The research has to start to come to terms with that discrepancy
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds almost political
Calvino Rabeni: in a way that admits group influence while keeping the dignity of the individual
Mitzi Mimistrobell: perhaps we may end up having to redefine "dignity" a little bit
Mitzi Mimistrobell: there are political implications for sure
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
Calvino Rabeni: For example, the fact that so many people are willing to accept a system that is called democracy but is in fact dominated by corporations
Calvino Rabeni: what's going on there?
stevenaia Michinaga: even morso now
Calvino Rabeni: For a whole demographic, it's not regarded as an infringement on the individuals
Calvino Rabeni: why is that?
stevenaia Michinaga: we let corps vote through eletion financing
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
stevenaia Michinaga: rather pathetic that the courts belive they have the constutional right of free speech
Calvino Rabeni: The get to vote, and have great power, but are sheltered from most legal challenges and responsibilities
Calvino Rabeni: they can easily dispose of challenges without much damage
stevenaia Michinaga: nods
Calvino Rabeni: so they have the power, but not the responsibilities, or vulnerabilities of real "individuals"
stevenaia Michinaga: unfortuately it's bedtime for me
Calvino Rabeni: That's a Good Thing :)
stevenaia Michinaga: jsut as things were getting good
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: well darling you have been drinking quite a bit there ....
Calvino Rabeni: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: see you soon
Calvino Rabeni: Sleep tight :)
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: Nice exit - right out of the center of the fountain!
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I might try that myself next time.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh my god, I've been INFLUENCED!!!
Mitzi Mimistrobell: and here I thought I was a free standing autonomous being
Calvino Rabeni: We should get over it :)
Calvino Rabeni: Do you know how Facebook constructs their social network recommendations?
Calvino Rabeni: For instance they send invitations to friendship
Mitzi Mimistrobell: tell me! I had figured just simple statisstical correlations
Calvino Rabeni: and those have a list of "you might also be friends with " ... and nine more face icons
Calvino Rabeni: if that is statistical, it's SCARY ACCURATE
Mitzi Mimistrobell: what do you mean exactly?
Calvino Rabeni: because in a recent solicitation I got, in the "you might know" list, FIVE out of NINE were correct, even though they were unrelated to the one trying to friend me, and from uncorrelated social clusters
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Where they suggest friends to you based on mutual friends?
Calvino Rabeni: if it is statistical that's quite accurate
Calvino Rabeni: if it's based on those people on the list giving my name explicitly, then it's no big deal
Mitzi Mimistrobell: How do you know they were unrelated to the one trign to friend you? I presumed they were either mutual friends, or ... maybe ... it's one level out on the node network ...?
Calvino Rabeni: It's more than one level out
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Giving your name explicitly?
Calvino Rabeni: maybe several levels
Calvino Rabeni: I feel fairly certain none of the candidates are direct friends
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Or I presume they may correlated words in your info section (job stuff), and location, and mutual friends or friends of friends ...
Calvino Rabeni: NO, I don't have a facebook profile, so there's no info there
Mitzi Mimistrobell: If those simplistic approaches are indeed what are used (and I can only assume they are since that's all they have to go on) then it DOES present a fascinating window into how clusters of attributes cluster people together ...!
Mitzi Mimistrobell: So they are giving greater weight to those attributes in the data sets of your friends I would guess ...
Calvino Rabeni: It reminds me of a cartoon by Roz Chast
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Roz Chast! Someone I admire! Do tell!
Calvino Rabeni: There was a computer profiler that would figure out what you had in common with any arbitrary individual... graphs and charts .. e.g. the crossing point between Calvino Rabeni and Franz Kafka was "Likes to Eat Raw Dough"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: a granfaloon indeed
Calvino Rabeni: Yeah, I like her work a lot
Calvino Rabeni: Here's a picture of the artist at work -- I think I'm in love :) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://americanart.si.edu/eyelevel/images/chast.jpg&...bih=480
Calvino Rabeni: Click that link, I dare :)
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I already did! Great, thanks for the connection
Mitzi Mimistrobell: or perhaps what we think are granfaloons (arbitrary meaningless associations) are actually more meaningful that we thought!
Calvino Rabeni: Well I was proposing recently, there's a strong (negative) correlation between "Tea Party Member" and "Likes to Eat Calamari"
Calvino Rabeni: And so far no one would bet a cent, against that conjecture
Mitzi Mimistrobell: (chuckling) ...
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, there's a strong Wine versus Beer correlation between Blue and Red states (or is it Dems and Republicans?)
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: How about champagne punch? Red or Blue?
Calvino Rabeni: sorry . distracted a bit ... that sounds like a truly democratic drink
Calvino Rabeni: Does America have a national drink, I wonder?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Kentucky bourbon might be a candidate ... famed throughout the world
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Probably BEER.
--BELL--

Mitzi Mimistrobell: Wow, we've been drinking a LOT of champagne punch! We're getting a little silly out here by the pool, my dear Calvino! Ha ha! I hope I don't fall in ... but, it could be fun.
Calvino Rabeni: This is the magic bottomless cup
Calvino Rabeni: You're right, all this pixel punch has made me light headed :)
Calvino Rabeni: Perhaps we should wind the session up?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: Wow, it's been really dense and good tonight, Calvino!!
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks! Good thing we mixed in some bubbles :)
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks for stopping by Mitzi, see you later.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I am going to sparkle off like a champagne bubble ...'