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The End of Industrial Society

palladiummag.com

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Re: The End of Industrial Society

#81

Post by majormajor »

zozbot234 wrote: post #79
majormajor wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, of course, is ultimately extremely defeatist compared to the ideals that the USA claims (the practice and history, on the other hand, would be another discussion). One of the things the right wing (especially the religious right) in the US does far better than any other groups is to claim lofty egalitarian or noble-minded principals while not applying them to themselves. But if we throw that out, and want to em…

In the internal logic of these claims, it's not "defeatist" so much as looking at things as they are. A complex society will always have elites, as a simple matter of structure. The remaining question is whether those elite social positions should be legible or not. It's not about renouncing egalitarian ideals at all, it's being serious about pursuing them to the greatest feasible extent. > why lean to "let's just an…

There's a neat little rhetorical trick you're doing here:

> A complex society will always have elites, as a simple matter of structure. The remaining question is whether those elite social positions should be legible or not.

"Whether or not they should be legible or not" is not the only remaining question. Nor, I think, is "legible" the right word for what seems like it's being proposed - a return to "aristocracy" is not about just labeling, it's about formalizing and legitimizing power. Legible is a flashlight, not a scepter.

In recent history it's not even a particularly primary one compared to "how much should we tax, regulate, and break up those elites." In more violent revolutions, it's also been "should they get the guillotine?" You're talking purely legibility and not "accountability" or "what happens next." I think things are legible enough that we could hold the powerful more accountable than we do today if we wanted to. Making Peter Thiel a Duke isn't going to help.

And that violent example is a particularly important thing to remember if you're tempted to trust the elites to not hide and obfuscate even while making claims of "just making things legible." I don't think "should it be legible" is a particularly interesting question because I don't trust them to play by the rules anyway. When have they before?

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#82

Post by coryrc »

labster wrote: post #72
coliveira wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who guarantees the "kings and aristocrats" are really the ones pulling the strings? They are frequently just puppets.

Puppets of whom? The only (European) historical examples of puppet masters I can think of are the Church and other nobility — certainly no one from outside the class. If a merchant became powerful enough, they found a way to join the nobility, either directly or by marriage.

Turks and janissaries.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#83

Post by rmah »

mikewarot wrote: post #73
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause isn't adequately explained, but it's hard not to see the ramifications of the outcome everywhere you look. We live in a society that couldn't rebuild, if it had to, the New York City subway, or the Interstate Highway System, or the national electric grid, or numerous other features of industrialized 20th century America.

>We live in a society that couldn't rebuild, if it had to, the New York City subway, or the Interstate Highway System, or the national electric grid, or numerous other features of industrialized 20th century America. We live in a society which lacks the collective will to do such things. It's only after the knowledge required to do so is lost that it can't be done again. Unlike after the fall of Rome, there are machi…

there are machine tools all over this country that make it possible [...] sitting in basements, garages, barns, forests

That may not be as true as you imagine. Entire factories, refineries, chemical plants, etc. were dismantled and shipped to china during the 1990's and 2000's. Once there, they were re-assembled and put back into production. I have met people who were involved in this work. The equipment did not get retired, it got sold.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#84

Post by zozbot234 »

majormajor wrote: post #81
zozbot234 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the internal logic of these claims, it's not "defeatist" so much as looking at things as they are. A complex society will always have elites, as a simple matter of structure. The remaining question is whether those elite social positions should be legible or not. It's not about renouncing egalitarian ideals at all, it's being serious about pursuing them to the greatest feasible extent. > why lean to "let's just an…

There's a neat little rhetorical trick you're doing here: > A complex society will always have elites, as a simple matter of structure. The remaining question is whether those elite social positions should be legible or not. "Whether or not they should be legible or not" is not the only remaining question. Nor, I think, is "legible" the right word for what seems like it's being proposed - a return to "aristocracy" is…

> ...it's about formalizing and legitimizing power.

Again, power is a pervasive feature of any complex society. Do you pick formal and legitimized power, or power that's completely illegitimate and shorn of any formality?

> Making Peter Thiel a Duke isn't going to help.

If you have some sort of proceedings to make Peter Thiel a Duke, there might also be ways to strip him of his title for cause. Which might actually increase the public's collective power over acknowledged elites, and that without any resort to the more physical means you alluded to in your comment. After all, it would be more of a routine quasi-criminal sanction than a social revolution.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#85

Post by woodruffw »

jollybean wrote: post #69
woodruffw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what meaningful sense are kings and aristocrats "formally transparent"? The history of aristocracy (historical and contemporary) is the history of hiding money and power. The arc of liberal democracy has consistently bent away the kinds of secrets and implicit power structures that aristocracies thrive on.

? The history of aristocracy is about amplifying perception of power. Everyone knows who the King and Duke are and what their means of power are. The stage elaborate public things to legitimize their power. The Pharaohs themselves lived an entirely 'stage performed' existence to convince the plebes of their ostensible legitimacy. There are 'other groups' with power, whereupon the public knowledge of their influence w…

> Everyone knows who the King and Duke are and what their means of power are.

This is only true in a limited sense. The single most important justification for the King's power has been his divine right: a doctrine of preordained power that no earthly force can usurp. This works pretty well on illiterate peasants who fear divine retribution, but the cat is more or less out of the bag on that front.

And note: that is the justification for power, which defines its perception. A king's true source of power has historically been his wealth (and therefore the size of his army and supporting court), or the support of extremely wealthy parties (churches, merchant classes, etc.). Every regent in history has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the public from realizing that he is just a man, one whose wealth (and therefore power) can be taken.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#86

Post by mikewarot »

rmah wrote: post #83
mikewarot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We live in a society that couldn't rebuild, if it had to, the New York City subway, or the Interstate Highway System, or the national electric grid, or numerous other features of industrialized 20th century America. We live in a society which lacks the collective will to do such things. It's only after the knowledge required to do so is lost that it can't be done again. Unlike after the fall of Rome, there are machi…

there are machine tools all over this country that make it possible [...] sitting in basements, garages, barns, forests That may not be as true as you imagine. Entire factories, refineries, chemical plants, etc. were dismantled and shipped to china during the 1990's and 2000's. Once there, they were re-assembled and put back into production. I have met people who were involved in this work. The equipment did not get…

I understand that scaling infrastructure back up takes time and effort. I understand the long timescales involved in even the most basic of factory setup. I watched as it took a year to move the gear shop I was working at.

However, we were discussing not being able to reboot society at all. If you know how modern machining works, and have access to a supply of material and students to teach, it can be booted back up in reasonable timeframes. It wouldn't have to take a few Millenia to be re-invented again.

You can make machine shop level of flat surfaces with the Whitworth method. Steam technology on the small scale is something that can be done in the home shop. Once you don't have to rely on muscle to machine materials, you can scale up quickly.

Eric Flint wrote 1632, a work of alternative fiction which plays out this scenario by catapulting a mining town in West Virginia back to the year 1632. Food was the critical gate to pass through, but they made it.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#87

Post by planarhobbit »

Very good article. I disagree with the comments here that it’s too theoretical/high brow. From time to time I discuss these topics in a circle of friends and the language we use isn’t much different from the language of this article. There isn’t much “new” thinking here, but if it’s your first time then you’re exposed to a big question mark. It’s a fairly benign introduction to the genre of post-competent societal literature that has yet to have a name. Knut Hamsun is long gone, so we’ll need a new champion.

An argument can be made that the pessimism exhibited in this article is pointing its finger at the HN comments that are saying it’s too difficult to follow. Yes, the article is right on the money.

To paraphrase: due to social forces we have an inkling of capability left to actually do the things that our ancestors have done that brought us here. Yes, we have technology, but without the means to rebuild it, we are fucked. There is no next step because we haven’t completed this one yet, and already we’ve lost competency. This isn’t a new concept, plenty of books games etc discuss it - Fallout, Warhammer 40k both deal directly with tech that is no longer understood.

I would say we need more over-all rounded people. Your job where you sit in front of a computer writing code is great, but you should really know a variety of things and be able to piece together the gaps. Another good article earlier had an HN comment about how an “unqualified” customer analyzed damaged o-rings by the vibration of a motor. At the very least, learn how to grow some vegetables. Forget automated hydroponic irrigation systems. Just don’t be a complete idiot and this article will make complete sense to you.

Oh, and ignore people saying this is some right-wing dog whistle sponsored by Peter Thiel. These people live in a hell of their own making.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#88

Post by woodruffw »

zozbot234 wrote: post #84
majormajor wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a neat little rhetorical trick you're doing here: > A complex society will always have elites, as a simple matter of structure. The remaining question is whether those elite social positions should be legible or not. "Whether or not they should be legible or not" is not the only remaining question. Nor, I think, is "legible" the right word for what seems like it's being proposed - a return to "aristocracy" is…

> ...it's about formalizing and legitimizing power. Again, power is a pervasive feature of any complex society. Do you pick formal and legitimized power, or power that's completely illegitimate and shorn of any formality? > Making Peter Thiel a Duke isn't going to help. If you have some sort of proceedings to make Peter Thiel a Duke, there might also be ways to strip him of his title for cause. Which might actually i…

> If you have some sort of proceedings to make Peter Thiel a Duke, there might also be ways to strip him of his title for cause. Which might actually increase the public's collective power over acknowledged elites, and that without any resort to the more physical means you alluded to in your comment. After all, it would be more of a routine quasi-criminal sanction than a social revolution.

This is specious reasoning. There's a process that turns both of us into mulch (it involves a woodchipper), but you shouldn't attempt that process based on the inference that a reverse process (a mulch-to-human machine?) must therefore exist.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#89

Post by truffdog »

wardedVibe wrote: post #58

So... The US and Europe haven't stopped being manufacturing hubs. The kind of manufacturing changed to high end goods, and automation has greatly decreased the amount of labor involved. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_... the thesis is only possible if all you look at are the cheapest consumer goods, where moving to places with the lowest cost labor is a necessity.

A common criticism of that high level view of US manufacturing is that it is a bit of a lie, and a lot of it is about hedonic adjustments for new Intel chips being faster than old ones. Without that, the graph of manufacturing output in dollars looks like a steady downward slope from the year 2000 on.

Re: The End of Industrial Society

#90

Post by discreteevent »

shswkna wrote: post #36
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I found an interesting thesis that made me think "OK, parts of this sound plausible to me, help me connect the dots." But then there were no dots to be found, let alone connections. I am a very literal person, and in my youth I used to think this was a bit of a handicap, as "big thinkers" needed to be able to think of things in more abstract ways. As I've gotten older, though, I think I've become more aware o…

A “big idea” that sounds abstract to a literal thinker, should be seen as a hunch or an intuition about a situation. It can never be explained in satisfiable depth to a literal thinker. Only in hindsight will it be obvious. You expect proof, or a literal pathway of thought and explanation, because it has served you well. This is the guaranteed route to proving an idea, if such a literal route exists. Such ideas are g…

It took me a while to realize that if people with experience do not agree with something but cannot explain why, you shouldn't ignore them, particularly if the area is complex. They may just be wrong but also they may have an insight that you yourself might have found hard to articulate.
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