The idea of something called "An Economy" as distinct from the larger society was invented by political philosophers in the eighteenth century as a way of rationalizing certain self-interested, avaricious and greedy behaviors that take place in a market economy which were formerly sanctioned by ethical and moral systems. A totally arbitrary distinction is made between behaviors that are "economic" and hence outside all other spheres of human relationships - political, social, ethical, religious etc. where naked self-interest is expected and justifiable.
From 2003, Paul Krugman on serfdom and population. The idea is, when population density is high, it's cheaper to hire a worker than to feed a slave. When population density is low, the ruling powers have to hold their workers through violence to stop them from running off and being self-sufficient. This is something we'll have to struggle with as global population declines.
The Beer Game, or Why Apple Can't Build iPads in the US. The idea is, if a manufacturing and distribution system is too far-flung, then each part of the system tries to make up for delays by anticipating future orders. This leads to a feedback loop, instability, and failure. So China is good at manufacturing because the supply chains are so dense. I'm wondering how this will change as home-scale fabricators get cheaper and better. Maybe in 20 years a town will decide to specialize in building ultracapacitors or brain implants or airships, with all components made locally by different people in their garages.
We might as well consider civilization a game with bigger stakes than usual. It's no coincidence it was a success as a PC game too. Too bad both get a bit dull towards the end.
I think there's a deep truth here. Why is it that most games, and most societies, are more enjoyable at the beginning than at the end? I've quit Fallout 2. Now that I've got NPC's with shotguns, and gone back to the Den to kill the slavers and get the car, there's not much to look forward to: guns with different names and higher damage numbers, balanced by enemies with higher numbers, and a long series of quests that are starting to feel like busywork. The fun part was the beginning: designing my character, analyzing and optimizing skills and perks, squeaking by on primitive weapons and tools and finding my first good ones, and as a player, mastering the interface and unfolding a vision of a different world.
It's easier to see how this fits with civilization by looking at Civilization the game. You start out as a settler exploring the uncharted wilderness, you build up a city from nothing, you get new buildings and units with qualitatively different abilities; and then by the halfway point you can see the whole map, you have ships and airplanes, and "progress" becomes quantitative. In role-playing games this is called level grinding: the novelty and excitement are gone, and you're just doing the same stuff over and over to get higher numbers.
Compare this to the "American dream". You come from a poor family, work your way up into a series of higher paying and higher status jobs, get a house in the suburbs and two cars... and then what? There's nothing left but to make more money so you can get material possessions with higher price numbers. This is why rich people keep trying to make even more money, because if they say "I have enough", life becomes meaningless, game over. I think this is also why most lottery winners end up bankrupt. It's not just that they're irresponsible, but that they feel more alive when they're struggling.
Games don't model decline because it wouldn't be any fun, just trying to hold onto what you have as the numbers get smaller. But there would be one way... When your empire peaks, you stop playing the empire, and begin playing the new system that's going to replace it! Of course this is what the citizens do in real life. Many Americans are still obsessed with "security" (playing the decline), but more of us are giving up on the old system and turning our attention to various systems that might replace it.
Are human societies going to keep rising and falling forever? If we had a stable system, what would keep it interesting? Individual humans can keep their wealth stable and find meaning in things other than money, so how could a whole society do this? And why is this not a problem for other species? If life were satisfying in the right way, would we have no need for novelty? I'm thinking of an answer, but for now I'll leave these questions open...
What work are trees doing, and what work are birds doing? And what work are the sun and the moon and the stars doing? Except man, nobody is so insane to think that you have a certain great work to complete. This is how they have created the achieving mind.
This is related, oddly, to cosmology. I don't believe in the Big Bang, and some astronomers agree with me, but they have been pushed to the margins for cultural reasons. Our culture of expansion and achievement has projected its own mythology onto the universe, giving it a spectacular beginning and a linear progression to some kind of end. If, instead, the universe has always existed, then anything that could possibly be done has already been done an infinite number of times. If it's possible for you to win a Nobel Prize, then if you go far enough back, there's a world exactly like this one where you already did it. So there's no point doing anything just to accomplish it, only to enjoy it.
I feel like it's time for me to have some useless fun, so I've been playing Fallout 2, which you can download for $6 from GOG.com. If you decide to play Fallout 2, you will appreciate the Nearly Ultimate Fallout 2 Guide. ]]>Pacification was accomplished through the proffering of Western goods, including machetes, axes, metal pots, fishhooks, matches, mosquito netting, and clothing. The seductive appeal of such things was nearly irresistible, for each of these items can make a quantum improvement in a sylvan lifestyle. Acquisition of several or all of these goods is a transformative experience that makes contact essentially irreversible.
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With the convenience of matches, one quickly loses the knack for starting a fire. Shotguns decisively outperform bows and arrows, but cartridges must be bought at a good price. Such newly acquired dependencies fundamentally altered the life of the Indians, who were compelled to work for wages instead of spending their days hunting, fishing, and tending their gardens.
This is the kind of thing Ivan Illich wrote about all the time, and it's still happening today, to you. With the convenience of frozen dinners and restaurant meals, one quickly loses the knack for preparing food. iTunes decisively outperforms radio, but music files must be bought at a good price. To navigate sprawl you need a car, to pay expenses on a car you need a job, to get a job you need a college degree, and to get a degree you have to go so deep in debt that giant blocks of money own your life.
But at the same time, many of us understand this web of dependency and are fighting to get free of it. As I've argued many times, the reason to trade your car for a bicycle is not to save the planet, but to minimize your dependence on giant centralized systems in which you have no participation in power, and to liberate thousands of hours of your time for meaningful autonomous work. We're not trying to live like our ancestors, but to do something totally new: to preserve the most helpful complex technologies, while shifting to a political and economic system where power is fully shared.
]]>Magic is an imaginative conception of the lawfulness of a universe where matter has the attributes of consciousness, and can be engaged purely through intention. It is the product of our (primarily emotional and existential rather than intellectual) yearning to connect with the physical world beyond living organisms.
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I think we get closest to our natural conception of magic if we understand it as a lawfulness that governs the connectedness/disconnectedness of a universal consciousness. When I am able to summon up that broomstick, I become one with the broomstick in some way.
]]>I would add the category of organizational or social control: getting people to do things without them feeling that you are forcing them, or even always realizing that you are leading them. So we're talking advertising, propaganda, management, compulsory education... a lot of these methods are ones that certain people can SEE happening around them, but that most people don't recognize even when they are the object of the control.
I suspect that just as with technologies, there are more and less "evil" or "good" methods here. My advice to any leader who wishes to be "good" is to employ any such "magic" only very sparingly! It's possible to trick people into doing the better thing for themselves and the All, but then you aren't teaching them anything, and they can't go forward without you, or in opposition to you if needed.
I think you can take apart any profession and you will see the actors fall somewhat clearly to one side of that line or the other. The buzz-word for the "good" guys is Empowerment. I can sell you X forever, or I can show you how to do/make/get X on your own.
I think I would describe soldiers as having authoritarian personality more than anti-social personality. The authoritarian personality is aggressive when violence is sanctioned by authorities. These aren't simply thrill seekers that love violence. People like that are too hard to control.
Also, Sean sends a follow-up article on the same blog, Call of Apathy: Advanced Warfighter, arguing that the future of the military is not remorseless thugs, but remote button-pushers. But another reader sends this article, High Levels Of Burnout In U.S. Drone Pilots.
Of course, after unmanned killing machines, the next step is autonomous killing machines, where no human is even aware of the violence. In both cases, there's an interesting question. If you make an unprovoked attack on a machine, is it legal for the machine to respond with lethal force? The sane answer is no. The most the machine can do is take a picture of you and later you can be charged with vandalism. But this would make drones too tactically weak. The law will be changed, and you will still not be allowed to booby-trap your car, but machines in the service of the domination system will have the rights of self-defense formerly reserved to humans.
People need to realise that their wars are not fought by the guy on the news that lost a leg and loves his flag -- he was the FNG [fucking new guy] that got blown up because he was incompetent, who left the fight before it turned him into one of us. The world needs to be made aware of my kind: the silent majority of fighters, those that do not care about politics, religion, ethics, or anything else other than war for war's sake.
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My psychologist estimated that roughly 80% of infantrymen have an undiagnosed violent personality disorder. These aren't hard stats, but it's interesting when compared to the 20% that suffer from PTSD.
Finally, TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless By Blog. Worthless? How can anyone still think the purpose of airport screening is to keep weapons off airplanes? It's an abuse ritual. And the worse it is at keeping weapons off airplanes, the better it is at training us to submit to an insane authority. Every revelation that the scanners don't protect us, makes them more effective for their real purpose.
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