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225 comments on Easter Sunday Open Thread

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BOP on April 17, 2006 - 11:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
. . . a big reason why complex societies stick with their strategy long past the point of diminishing returns.  They become so committed to their way of life that changing ends up being very difficult and painful.



"Being committed to their way of life" implies volition and perhaps even a measure of obstinacy. An alternative perspective would view the society as having become embedded in a certain set of memes that permits one course of action and forecloses many others.


There are those of us who remember life before suburbia. There are a far larger number who know nothing but suburbia and cannot conceive of an alternative, or perceive any need for change. This ignorance is very different from committment. A high level of Tainter Complexity would promote this ignorance; milk comes from the corner store not from a cow.

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Leanan on April 17, 2006 - 11:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"Being committed to their way of life" implies volition and perhaps even a measure of obstinacy.

Then I'm sorry I used that word.  It's not what I meant.  How about "locked in"?  I don't mean they're being obstinate, and I don't mean they are blind to alternatives.  I mean they end up logistically unable to change without significant pain.

As an example...the oil-fueled Green Revolution has resulted in a lot of problems that weren't visible at first.  With the knowledge we have  now...many of us are now thinking we should never have started down the agribusiness path in the first place.  

But what are we going to do about it?  Agribusiness has allowed us to increase the population to levels undreamt of a hundred years ago.  If we give up agribusiness, how are we going to feed all the "extra" people?  We are locked in by our previous choices.

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expat on April 18, 2006 - 1:32am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The idea that societies are best defined by what they exclude is something which occurred to me a long time ago.

This also takes care of the problem of volition - an individual can make choices, but if they go into the territory that society excludes, the individual no longer has any meaningful impact in that society. And stepping outside of society is generally very dangerous - here, you could make a simple natural selection argument on why this is so, but I hate such perspectives.

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225 comments on Easter Sunday Open Thread

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