Friday, February 09, 2007

clumps

furious, he plucked a blade of grass and pressing to his forehead, he closed his eyes , muttered a quick incantation and threw it at me

SF quote :
Delusions are functional - Robert Heinlein as Lazarus Long -

Howard Bloom, says
in short ,of swarms, their castes be :
i) conformity enforcers
ii) diversity generators iii) utlity sorters iv) resource allocators
and they do
v) intergroup tournaments

I have only flipped through Capra's Web of Life and not read it, but I suspect he covers some of the same ground.

Time for a Zen quote:

before learning zen, trees are trees , mountains are mountains
when learning zen,
trees are not trees , mountains are not mountains
after learning zen, trees are trees , mountains are mountains


Tainter : complex societies - societies grow complex to aid division of labour - free market economics initally favours speciallization - ie - people doing what they do best, and trading for other stuff - as more efficient.
aside : Adams has already warned that super-speciallization will be dehumanizing - leaving individuals capable in one area/field/skill but pretty much dependent and dumb in all others, and hence at the mercy of the integrators- (Toffler:The Third Wave)
Tainter goes on to say that over time, the complexity and the division of labour will fail to pay off when the Law of Diminishing Returns -(Economics) kicks in. Then societies will collapse.

Toffler doesn't see inevitable collapse, instead, says the super-speciallization will be beaten back by something super-complex - prosuming/ the DIY movement/ power & information to the individual movements - all which are aided by the crosshairs of business shifting to retail ( which I personally feel is the last refuge of capitalism and probably the cul-de-sac where it will be ambushed ) and the free internet - both of which add up to giving the common man 1.things 2.information ( and intangibly, ideas, and pastimes, avenues to release and relaxation,prejudices ) for cheap.

Akerlof with his identity and information asymmetry will be the archetype kung-fu master with one immovable foot stuck out on which all opponents twist and flail and inevitably get knocked out, I'm sure

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