Holotopia: Power structure

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Power structure

At the turn of the 20th century, it appeared that the technology would liberate us from drudgery and toil, and empower us to engage in finer human pursuits—notably in human development. But we seem to be just as busy and stressed as people ever were! What happened with all the time we've saved?

We look at the systems in which we live and work. Imagine them as gigantic machines, comprising people and technology, whose function is to take our daily work as input, and turn it into socially useful effects. If we are stressed and busy—should we not see if they might be wasting our time? And if the result of our best efforts are problems rather than solutions—should we not see whether they might be causing those problems?

Why, indeed, are we so prodigiously successful in creating miniature gadgets that we can keep in our pocket—and completely neglecting those gigantic and incomparably more important ones? Why don't we adapt them to the purposes they need to serve, as the Modernity ideogram suggests?

A reason why we don't adapt our institutions or more generally socio-technical systems to the purposes they need to fulfill is that they fulfill for us an entirely different purpose—they provide a relatively stable and safe structure in which our various turf strifes and power battles are played out. Both small and large. Both violent and subtle.

Stories

Wastefulness of systems

We may have all the resources we need to take care of the world's large problems. The roots of those problems are in the systems in which we live and work, which determine in what ways those resources are being used. The Ferguson–McCandless–Fuller thread is intended to serve as a parable, pointing to the wastefulness of some of our core systems (finance, and governance tainted by "special interests"). See it outlined here and here.

Devolution of systems

An even deeper, or even more pivotal issues, is the manner in which the systems in which we live and work evolve. "The survival of the fittest", we seem to believe, will take care of that. But will it, really?

The insight we need from the studies of Darwinian evolution is that it favors (as Richard Dawkins pointed out) the best adapted gene; or meme—when we apply it to understanding social and cultural evolution.

The Chomsky–Harari–Graeber thread is also intended to serve as a parable, pointing to a sobering conclusion that this sort of study leads us to: The social-systemic "survival of the fittest" will tend to favor aggressive systems, that are damaging to culture, and to ourselves. Wee it outlined here. Make sure to process also our commentary of Joel Bakan's "The Corporation", which shows that while the results of this systemic devolution may look different in modernity, the pathological nature of its outcome has remain unchanged.