I wonder if this can be extrapolated to the collapse of civilizations? I mean in the sense of urban societies with some continuity of governmental structure. The cultures of, for instance, Egypt and China that we speak of as millenia-old have usually been through multiple cycles of growth and collapse. When the leader gets to a certain level of power, nobody dares to bring him bad news, so his idea of the state of his kingdom gets further and further from reality because what his underlings tell him is derived from their understanding of his likes and dislikes and is designed to keep him in a good mood. The more urban the society gets, the more people depend on "keeping the customer satisfied" and the fewer individual members are in touch with reality. Eventually a black swan comes in for a landing and nobody does anything about it because the people who could do something about it are too insulated by second-order sterility to find out about it.
Well articulated. This has seemed obvious to me for decades. The constant feedback dots and loops in complex, evolving biological systems are far from sterile. Biology sterile? LOL. Language is a double-edged technology. Technology? Anyway, the NRx, dark tetrad, TESCREAL project does not care about life. Life? LOL. Do some of us think we know what that means? I have a funny intuition that our civilization will be unplugged sooner rather than later. "Someday, this war is gonna end." Kilgore
Read the dead! I love it, very true. Read the Dead! I loved it. Your article reminded me of Richard Dawkins’ biomorph experiment. It starts with random ink blot-like shapes that go through generations of small mutations, and by the end you get forms that look uncannily like butterflies and other living things.
This is true even of government run "programs" and "benefits" continuously refining for systems efficiency while at the same time causing increased poverty, homelessness and desperation. It is also true of conglomerates that provide minimum wage "jobs" consistently refining for maximum profits while diminishing the quality of product and life for all - for the illusion of power and profit...
The scariest part is how easy it is to build an entire career on this without even realizing it. You can accumulate a decade of glowing reviews, pristine documentation, and flawless strategy, only to notice that none of it was ever tested by the outside world. It’s like owning a pristine car that has never left the garage-it makes you feel completely in control today, but leaves you totally defenseless the second you actually have to drive it on a real road.
I wonder if this can be extrapolated to the collapse of civilizations? I mean in the sense of urban societies with some continuity of governmental structure. The cultures of, for instance, Egypt and China that we speak of as millenia-old have usually been through multiple cycles of growth and collapse. When the leader gets to a certain level of power, nobody dares to bring him bad news, so his idea of the state of his kingdom gets further and further from reality because what his underlings tell him is derived from their understanding of his likes and dislikes and is designed to keep him in a good mood. The more urban the society gets, the more people depend on "keeping the customer satisfied" and the fewer individual members are in touch with reality. Eventually a black swan comes in for a landing and nobody does anything about it because the people who could do something about it are too insulated by second-order sterility to find out about it.
Well articulated. This has seemed obvious to me for decades. The constant feedback dots and loops in complex, evolving biological systems are far from sterile. Biology sterile? LOL. Language is a double-edged technology. Technology? Anyway, the NRx, dark tetrad, TESCREAL project does not care about life. Life? LOL. Do some of us think we know what that means? I have a funny intuition that our civilization will be unplugged sooner rather than later. "Someday, this war is gonna end." Kilgore
Read the dead! I love it, very true. Read the Dead! I loved it. Your article reminded me of Richard Dawkins’ biomorph experiment. It starts with random ink blot-like shapes that go through generations of small mutations, and by the end you get forms that look uncannily like butterflies and other living things.
This is true even of government run "programs" and "benefits" continuously refining for systems efficiency while at the same time causing increased poverty, homelessness and desperation. It is also true of conglomerates that provide minimum wage "jobs" consistently refining for maximum profits while diminishing the quality of product and life for all - for the illusion of power and profit...
The scariest part is how easy it is to build an entire career on this without even realizing it. You can accumulate a decade of glowing reviews, pristine documentation, and flawless strategy, only to notice that none of it was ever tested by the outside world. It’s like owning a pristine car that has never left the garage-it makes you feel completely in control today, but leaves you totally defenseless the second you actually have to drive it on a real road.