What should I do about Arrow and Tunes?

[Tril]

On Sun, 10 Jan 1999, RE01 Rice Brian T. EM2 wrote:

> I know that I've been leaving lots of people behind in the group, but I feel
> _driven_ to develop the system to its final outcome.  Now that someone has
> spoken about their frustrations with my efforts, I can't ignore this effect
> I've been having on the group any longer.  And, yes, I've noticed how the
> conversation has been worn thin.  Am I that terrible a member?

No.  I think your "purposeful forgetting" laymens terms is the sole cause
of your frustration.  How can you expect to help anyone if you can't
communicate?  One reason I am taking my time developing my model for tunes
is that I understand the importance of simple explanations.  I believe the
entire framework should be easily understandable by an average user.  This
seems to be the major difference between our approaches.  Other than this
apparently major difference, I'm sure many aspects of our ideas of the
system(s) are similar, but since I can't understand you, I am not able to
tell what those are.  As you said before, language is a barrier in this
case, but it doesn't have to be.  I appreciate the efforts of those who
are helping you to write specs for your system.  I agree with those who
want the project to be focused on making documents explaining concepts
related to tunes.  As documents get specific enough the code can begin to
be written by people other than the ones who first understood the
concepts.

> Is there another OS-like project which has a membership which could help me
> better? I doubt it.  If someone understood the _entire_ Arrow system
> intuitively as I do, but could also use laymen's terms, a skill that I have
> (purposefully) forgotten, then I could focus on the Arrow development within
> a smaller, isolated group without disturbing the general Tunes group, and
> simultaneously assist in explaining Arrow as necessary.  However, I don't
> see that I will be able to support both efforts simultaneously.

As I said above, my system is probably fundamentally similar to Arrow.  As
I work on my explanations of my system, I hope you can point me in the
direction of understanding Arrow.  Also, I will try to find things in
Arrow which I recognize in my own concept of the system.

> Perhaps I could instead drop out of the group and continue private
> conversations with the people who can understand it, since I seem to have
> lost relevance with the average member.  Socially, I seem to have moved away
> from the herd, and the change seems neither bad nor good.

Well, I don't know what you mean "drop out of the group," but if you mean
reducing the number of posts, I agree.  It's not to say you are
broadcasting noise rather than signal, but that the signal is in an alien
format.  If there are those willing to hear you then by all means write
them.  Myself included.  

An alternative is to continue sending the actual posts to the list, but
narrow the audience to a few people who you are trying to get to
"intuitively understand" Arrow.

> I do, however, have a clear understanding (I believe) of where the Arrow
> system is going and how it will eventually reach Tunes-bootstrapping
> capability and some level beyond that which I can't identify, something that
> the group doesn't seem to have done.  I don't mean to be arrogant, but I
> believe that I have ideas which Tunes can benefit from, and Tunes has
> members who can understand my goals.  Both are rare things for either side,
> and I'd like to make a better relationship for us both.
> 
> Any suggestions? (the usual pointless begging)
> Would anyone help me?
> Does anyone GIVE A DAMN about what I have to say any longer?
> 
> Please help me, because the agony of having these ideas without the ability
> to express them to everyone and see them become reality is going to drive me
> insane.  Can you imagine how terrible it would be if I died in the Persian
> gulf with no one to make these ideas real?  I have so much of my life
> invested in this that for all of it to go to waste would drive me to
> suicide.

But you said it was your own choice to lose the ability to express your
ideas.  Do you truly believe that some ideas are impossible to understand
except for a select few, who have a gift?  If you ask me, isolating
yourself conceptually will only perpetuate technocratic elitism, which I
thought you were helping us to fight.

I do appreciate you.  And I do agree we are involved in something exciting
and great.  However, I do not understand the extreme to which you are
taking yourself:  I do not believe the new plane of "life" we strive for
includes making oneself unhappy.  Let me know what I can do to help you.

I don't think anyone objects to going "beyond TUNES".  But maybe we better
get TUNES first.

David Manifold <dem@tunes.org>
This message is placed in the public domain.