Re: Why and How

[Aiviet Nguyen <aiviet@cat.syr.edu>]

Thank you Anh Vu Hong Lam for the theory of power games. I have to digest 
more, as I am very bad with pure concepts that don't have examples to 
guideline.

  What I had in mind is not the power. I am thinking of a hierarchy of
a topic and the process of breaking it into primitives. 

  For instance you want to implement a lot of things ( hows) to serve
a goal (why). You can give the hows to your consultants. In that case you 
play the role of the coordinator. If you don't know why you don't have a 
criteria to choose the proper consultants. It is not true that you are 
always more powerful. It depends on the stage of developement ( Entropy 
again). If you know why you can try to organize the hows into a service and
you supervisor can ask you to act as one of his/her consultants, because 
he know how to put your service with others to make a more sophisticated
service.

  Let me take an example when the upper layer is less powerful: the telephone
companies are more powerful than ISP's, even they are at the lowere layer.
Companies use money to do business but Wall Street is the most powerful
community.

  Second point I want to clarify: beside capital, knowledge the belief is
also a way to gain power. ( I tend to think capital and knowledge are already
manifestations of power, only the belief is a potential power).
Actually, the Amway'sVP says: " The secret to the leadership is the belief".
I found this business guy very intelligent.

  I would say the knowledge and capital are protocols in a power games.
( your word: media). At a certain level, you should talk in a proper
dictionary of knowledge or should have some money to live the standard
conformist way. The belief is not a protocol ( may be it is in some extended
sense). You can have the same belief as your boss or boss of boss.


Cheers
Aiviet