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Six Small Degrees

05:29 / 17.01.02

So, I've noticed on the news now and again that people are trying to distance themselves from any possible association with terrorists. Certain goods and services that are thought to be linked to terrorist organizations are being left by the wayside in an effort to stop any support that terrorists cells might gain from their purchase and/or use.

But I wonder to myself how far we can actually achieve this "distancing." It is hard enough to keep track of your own finances let alone know where your hard earned money ends up after it has left your sweaty hands! I mean, who are we defining these terrorists to be anyway? How much money sifts through organized crime each year, and is this financing any less dangerous to us then money that finds its way into "terrorist" hands?

Finally, if there are only six degrees of separation between a specific individual and any other person in this "global village," then how are we to ever successfully remove ourselves from all association with "terrorists" short of a mass extinction (Jonesworld!), a massive overhaul of the way we relate to one and other (so people would not feel the need to commit "terrorist acts"), or some other such highly implausible hard to execute widespread idealistic change?

With hope that that Mango works,
6 + 9 = 0 (mod 5)

13:41 / 17.01.02

As an experiment, I wonder if we could manage to link anyone on the 'Lith by six degrees or less?

Zoom.

pointless and uncalled for

13:45 / 17.01.02

Easily I should imagine and I bet you could include Kevin Bacon in that chain as well.

pointless and uncalled for

15:33 / 17.01.02

Right

16:49 / 17.01.02

Capt. Zoom, I was wondering how that would work, viz, does communicating online with another, or others, count as one degree of separation? If we haven't met in real life, then does the degree of separation still hold? If so, perhaps the future will bring an even smaller number of degrees between any one person and any other.

As for trying to link us all up (for experimental purposes) I think that might be tough to run, because we would have to disclose much information that some of us might prefer not to disclose.

However, I agree with WoI in that it would likely be successful! By the very nature of the definition of the degrees of separation, with each degree that one moves to the number of people that one is related to goes up exponentially! Here is an example for ojoh:

I know this man who knew Bertrand Russell. Thus, there is only two degrees of separation between myself and Mr. Russell, and there is three degrees of separation between myself and everyone that Mr. Russell knew.

A more hypothetical example goes like this:
there is one degree of separation between me and my Mom. My mother has been traveling much in the last four years, and has been to England several times. She hooked up with a nice couple in England, and now they exchange occasional letters. There is two degrees of separation between myself and this couple. Now, I don't know the couple, but since they live in England, I'm quite confident that there is only another degree or two, through this couple, between myself and at least one of our British members.

The degrees of separation thing seems to branch out rather quickly: once you move into the third or fourth degree I'm thinking that you are likely connected to around a million people or so (Working from the assumption that any one person knows or has known one hundred people in their life we get 100 people at one degree, 10, 000 people at two degrees and 1,000,000 people at three degrees!).

So, given that it adds up pretty fast, it is also likely that any one of us is only a scant three or four degrees (or even less!) away from any "terrorist": how are we, like our governments would desire (according to the media), to completely disassociate ourselves from terrorist activity?

Floored by the complexity of it all,
100^100^100^100^100^100 = 0 (mod 5)

19:32 / 18.01.02

I've been told at least 3 times a day for the past 5 years that I look strikingly like Kevin Bacon, does that count at all?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:53 / 19.01.02

I can get to terrorists in two degrees in at least two directions.

That means all of you can do it in three.

(Assuming a degree is a gap from one person to another. To put it more prosaically, I know two people who know people with terrorist histories. That I can think of.)

But let me take this opportunity to say, in all seriousness, that I despise terror, whoever employs it. It's not a political tool. It's the creeping, cancerous death of idealism.

15:08 / 19.01.02

I think for the purposes of an experiment you'd have to go with IRL. I agree that it would be hard. I could mention any of my relatives in England, but how does one proceed after that? I still think it would be a fun thing to do, if it were logistically possible.

Zoom.

06:17 / 22.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Nick:
I can get to terrorists in two degrees in at least two directions.

That means all of you can do it in three.

I see you assume that connection online counts as one degree: ok.

Now that we are all only three degrees away from some sort of terrorists, what the hell can we do about it? I do think that "not much" is neither a good nor acceptable answer, and yet, how do we change the way that people relate to each other (short of Mango magick, maybe?) when these people are not in our one to two degree range?

Does this question even have an answer?

and

quote:Nick:But let me take this opportunity to say, in all seriousness, that I despise terror, whoever employs it. It's not a political tool. It's the creeping, cancerous death of idealism.

In all seriousness, this should be a given: like breathing.

Of course, we now need to look at what sorts of terrorism occur in the world, and these, I think, go beyond simple bombs and hi-jacked airliners to the much more complex economic and foreign policies of nations. These too can be seen as "...the creeping, cancerous death of idealism." [note: not the death of idealism, but idealism which generates death]

Can we ever all get along?
23 + 32 = 0 (mod 5)

08:19 / 22.01.02