Efficiency, centralization, and lack of agency v. resilience
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, March 28, 2025 15:44
VIEWED: 4079
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Oh my goodness, Magons?
I'm snarling at you? I made a lame joke in my last post, saying "Jesus..." after claiming that I don't advocate belief in god. See how lame that joke was? Super lame. Prolly should have left it out. I thought of writing it "Jeez..." to underscore the comic tone I was intending, but then I thought it might sound too conversational and the humor would be lost, so I ended up thinking "Jesus..." was actually funnier in context. So. Lame joke. My fault. No snarl. And. I don't believe in Jesus.
You gotta know I'm hesitant to even reply to you after you tell me that you consider my last post a snarl, but in the interest of mutual understanding, I'm gonna give it a go. Please, feel free to respond or not as you see fit.
I am frustrated, certainly, that you can't read what I wrote without thinking I'm advocating god over atheism. This touches on myriad conversations I've been embroiled in on this board over the years, which you may not have been privy to. But I kinda thought you were and so your comment was frustrating to me in that context. If I am wrong, I am wrong and I am sorry for dragging you into it.
I said, as you quote: "This is my single gripe with atheism." I meant that. I assure you, I have A LOT MORE than one gripe with theists.
The self-described atheists I've known--every last one of them--has been a materialist as well. I've come to understand that the two are generally considered one and the same thing by atheists. So, for all the atheists I've ever known, their atheism includes a denial of anything beyond or behind or in addition to the physical world as currently defined by science.
I have had many experiences that fall well outside the realm of accepted scientific materialism. So I don't get to be an atheist (yet--maybe at some future vantage of history, the things I've experienced in my life will be accepted reality, but not now, not yet).
So, atheism is lovely, because it doesn't include anything I consider bullshit, like God the Father. Unfortunately, a lot of what I have experienced in my life my atheist brothers and sisters tend to consider bullshit.
And certainly any card-carrying theists know perfectly well I ain't one of them. They got an instinct for such things. So I'm stuck in the middle. Looking at both sides. And the one thing I think atheism lacks is a sense of something larger, something to love that isn't human.
But here we have Signy, being a somewhat inconsistent (she called it "stupid") materialist. On the one hand, her water and thanks warms my heart as a beautiful expression of natural spirituality. And on the other hand, it makes me sad that she feels obliged to call it "stupid." This kind of self-denegration is not at all uncommon in the serious atheists I've known. Gratitude is not an easy fit for the atheists I've known.
That's why I said what I said. I think if the atheists could fit gratitude comfortably into their world-views they would be ideal stewards for our planetary home.
Here's a stupid idea of my own. This is how I think. The things we tend to take the best care of are the things we love. If we could LOVE the planet we live on--y'know, think of it maybe as a living being (you know the drill)--then we would be in a better position to take proper care of her. If you can love the Earth and be an atheist at the same time, I rejoice. I have no problem with such an atheism.
Does that help?
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Matey, I can't assume your tone unless you make it very clear. Sometimes a ;)
or an emoticon will help if you are making a joke.
I don't have time to read your entire post at the mo but will get back to you later.
A sunny Autumnal day calls - too good to spend inside on this forum.
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Signy's original post.....
HOLLYWOOD STYLE!!!!!!!
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
The self-described atheists I've known--every last one of them--has been a materialist as well. I've come to understand that the two are generally considered one and the same thing by atheists. So, for all the atheists I've ever known, their atheism includes a denial of anything beyond or behind or in addition to the physical world as currently defined by science.
I have had many experiences that fall well outside the realm of accepted scientific materialism. So I don't get to be an atheist (yet--maybe at some future vantage of history, the things I've experienced in my life will be accepted reality, but not now, not yet).
So, atheism is lovely, because it doesn't include anything I consider bullshit, like God the Father. Unfortunately, a lot of what I have experienced in my life my atheist brothers and sisters tend to consider bullshit.
And certainly any card-carrying theists know perfectly well I ain't one of them. They got an instinct for such things. So I'm stuck in the middle. Looking at both sides. And the one thing I think atheism lacks is a sense of something larger, something to love that isn't human.
But here we have Signy, being a somewhat inconsistent (she called it "stupid") materialist. On the one hand, her water and thanks warms my heart as a beautiful expression of natural spirituality. And on the other hand, it makes me sad that she feels obliged to call it "stupid." This kind of self-denegration is not at all uncommon in the serious atheists I've known. Gratitude is not an easy fit for the atheists I've known.
That's why I said what I said. I think if the atheists could fit gratitude comfortably into their world-views they would be ideal stewards for our planetary home.
Here's a stupid idea of my own. This is how I think. The things we tend to take the best care of are the things we love. If we could LOVE the planet we live on--y'know, think of it maybe as a living being (you know the drill)--then we would be in a better position to take proper care of her. If you can love the Earth and be an atheist at the same time, I rejoice. I have no problem with such an atheism.
Does that help?
Thanks, yes it does. I think your experience is shaped by the kind of atheists you know. I'm sorry for that, because that isn't my experience of atheism at all.
Quote:
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?
Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, NATURAL world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
Well known atheist Tim Minchin, Storm.
He is a comedian, hence some of the vitriol. If you care to see the whole video, google it. Tried to go post it here and it didn't work.
I suppose not so much gratitude as awe is more the experience that I have with regard to the natural world, because sometiimes gratitude is not the emotion I feel in the face of some of the natural world. The capacity for destruction, catastrophic change. The knowledge that a few minor changes and we would easily cease to exist as a species, that life itself may no longer go on on earth.
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6IX
Heya Jack! Yeah, Hollywood style!
MAGONS
Yes, the feeling of gratitude diminishes our universe. Gratitude implies an emotional relationship. The earth doesn't have one with us. I hope your autumnal day was pleasant!
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I think if we really knew the overwhelming powers in the universe around which our puny lives flit, we wouldn't feel gratitude but ice cold fear. Thank god (meant colloquially) for human limits on our perceptions.
"Right now, the pupose of the system is to "make money"."
But before that other systems also unsustainable had the purposes of oh, assuring the sun god would return (hence the sacrifice of human hearts), or filling your rightful place in the structure (either Medieval Europe or historic China), or acquiring as many cows as you can to impress your friends and relatives - and get the girl (Masai).
The same thing comes up over and over again.
So I was thinking about an individual human alone in the wilderness. She understands that in order to survive she must deal with the impersonal world around her on its impersonal terms - find water, make fire, find food etc.
Now instead you have two couples, or two villages, or tribes, or countries - doesn't matter. As time goes on, it becomes apparent that resources are starting to run a bit thin. There just isn't the abundance there used to be. The answer - the REAL answer - is for them both to reduce their populations, and use resources efficiently rather than wastefully.
But instead of treating this as an impersonal problem needing practical solutions which will benefit them all, the mere presence of other people will open the door to them treating this as a zero sum human problem - a COMPETITION. So they each try to have more children, more arms, more fighters, in order to TAKE from the other what little remains. (I wonder if that's what happened on Easter Island, and it blinded them to the larger picture ...)
So, I heard something interesting the other day. Apparently it's an old observation that goes to the effect that humans are good at recognizing the immediate crises, but not the slow-moving ones. Maybe they're also good at putting the human face on a problem, but not the impersonal facet. So you don't recognize that if you have four children and they each have four children and so on, that sooner or later things will run out. And maybe you see the problem as a competition between you and the other village, rather than a systemic imbalance between all the people and their surroundings.
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Back to the problem of efficiency.
An efficient factory means that maximum goods will be produced for minimum input. Ordinarly, one thinks that's a good thing: waste not, want not. But maximum efficiency, when calculated that way, fosters centralization, because economies of scale (bigger enterprises have less waste) foster larger businesses.
Other costs don't get factored in. People need to live in crowded conditions in order to be an "efficient" labor source for factories (hence, the many-thousand-person dormitories of China, where ppl sleep in shifts three to a bunk). Food needs to be trucked in, and shit needs to be piped out. Children are separated from their parents and their parents' work-experience, and are wharehoused in age-appropriate cohorts to be "educated" in assembly-line fashion, efficiently producing the maximum number of factory-ready and cubicle-ready workers using the least number of bricks, books, and teachers. Goods are produced in singular factories, such as the one in Japan that produces all of the integrated circuit-chip plastic for the entire world. (True) "Just in time" supply becomes the rage; redundancy and surplus are anathema. A thousand single points of possible failure are generated.
-------------------
Every nation has been touched by the global financial meltdown. Russia's big money-makers, gas and oil, are selling cheap. Greece and Spain are experiencing a Great Depression. Argentina is struggling with inflation. Ireland is facing yet another mortgage default crisis. Even China, mighty China, is slowing down. (Oh yeah, and the brain-dead rightwingnuts think this is all Fannie's and Freddie's fault.)
Every single nation is looking for a leg up on every other nation. Sellers of commodities (ores, energy, foodstuffs) are looking to manufacture, since commodity prices are declining. Manufacturers are looking to either sell labor cheaper or upping the quality of labor - or both. Governments are trying to reduce the value of their currency in order to boost exports. Financials are looking for better investments. Everyone is trying to be more efficient. But nobody is buying, because a lot of money is stuck in the hands of a few, who are themselves looking for some sort of investment that will return MORE money into their hands. Since bonds, commodities, and manufactures are flat, that means more speculation and yet another upcoming bubble.
Wow, is that a cluster-fuck, or what???
Everything.... boom-and-bust, global warming, social breakdown... can be eliminated by simply changing the purpose of our economies. Rather than jumping into the world economy as a gladiatorial event, nations COULD really just redirect their production and focus to doing what economies should be doing in the first place: making safe and secure places for people to work and live, planning for the future, healing the earth, and telling the rest of the world to go hang.
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I agree with your overall conclusion, I'm still not sure if I agree with your concept of efficiency.
Part of your objection to efficiency lies in the fact that the inputs are miscounted. But if a society were to account for the inputs - short and long term, direct and indirect resources used - then efficiency might not look so bad. At present we count only direct itemized costs, all with an eye toward profit. We don't count soil lost, watersheds damaged, CO2 increased, centralization of farming into large multinationals, packaging waste etc. But if that changed we would be looking at farming with an eye to losing less land, keeping more creeks, lakes and rivers viable, keeping CO2 down etc per unit of food production. And then I don't think you could argue that increased efficiency in that case is bad ... after all, who would agree that farming that ruins more land is better than farming that ruins less land, or none?
And then there's the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness. One can be very efficient at doing the wrong thing. Effectiveness, which is doing the right thing, trumps efficiency, which is doing things in the right way.
So, I don't have an objection to efficiency per se, just to very short-sighted calculations and to the notion that what you do doesn't matter as long as you're doing it efficiently.
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I think that robustness and effiency are intrinsic opposites, no matter HOW universally you calculate efficiency. Robustness requires redundancy and surplus... "wasted" resources in anyone's calculation.
As an aside, it seems to me that human economies wobble back and forth between functioning like an ecosystem (disparate, and redundant activities) and functioning like a body (ie integrated, specialized functions tied together in a single unit).
When I try to imagine disasters of various kinds, the most consequential involve a breakdown of transporation and communication. It is our transportation systems that allow activities to be centralized; w/o transportation it would be impossible to ship IC-plastic from Japan to everywhere; tantalum from Africa to China; and iPhones from China to the world; or to remove trash and sewage from our neighborhoods. That is where our human economy differs from an ecosystem, because ecosystems are always local: ALL of the functions of an ecosystem have to happen in one place. It's not like you can have plants converting sunlight to sugar in one place, the the grazers feeding in another place, and the predators and parasites someplace else.
So... transportation ... like blood flowing thru a body... is the essential ingredient in specialization and centralization.
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"Robustness requires redundancy and surplus... "wasted" resources in anyone's calculation."
Well, let's take an example of one kind of 'waste' - the rotting of grain in storage. How does increasing that waste lead to an increase of robustness?
I think there might be different categories of waste, and they aren't all equal. Perhaps there are types of things we think of as waste - generalization rather than specialization; diversity of method rather than imposition of an assembly-line style; dispersal, duplication and overlap of function rather than centralization and streamlining - that do lead to increased robustness;; but there are other types of waste that don't ...
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