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The only evidence that bureaucracy is increasing that is given is … a Twitter poll? Then, that is taken as some sort of universal law and applied to … “public

The only evidence that bureaucracy is increasing that is given is … a Twitter poll? Then, that is taken as some sort of universal law and applied to … “public discussions”? It’s really easy to measure actual bureaucracy in that field: it is none, and has always been none. The idea that people often say it “wasn’t the content of what you said but the way you said it” just doesn’t ring true to me. But in any case, it’s a stretch to define cultural attitudes about language as “bureaucracy”. And still, if one insists on ignoring all these falsehoods, it’s entirely obvious that those unwritten rules have become far more liberal over time. My Grandparents weren’t allowed to utter a single sentence during dinner when they were children. My parents still had to stand up anytime they wanted to say something. Societies used to be stratified into distinct classes and there were specific rules on how to address members of each class, although for the category of arguing about ideas these rules sort-of collapsed for all but a tiny minority to: don’t even think about it. You want to only talk about online speech? It didn’t exist only a few decades ago, which one might consider “the ultimate bureaucracy”. The cultural bandwidth allocated to online discussions today was occupied by the “mainstream media”, primarily newspapers. The unwritten rule you had to follow to regularly publish in a paper started with “be a man, preferably white”. That, however, didn’t get you anywhere near the power of a mid-sized Twitter account. You had to devote your life exclusively to the profession of journalism and be willing to spend years on post-secondary education before you had a chance to be hired.

barry-cotter 5y ago
> The only evidence that bureaucracy is increasing that is given is … a Twitter poll? If the thing you are talking about is bloody obvious people are often willing to take it on faith or to use low quality evidence as gesturing towards an idea. Bureaucracy has been increasing on a long run trend since the invention of writing. Record keeping, procedures and laws are among the earliest uses of writing. More humans both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population than ever before are literate, i.e. capable of productively taking part in a bureaucracy. Universal schooling makes people more obedient to orders, more accepting of ranking and less creative, less likely to fuck up standard procedure. Non-state non-religious bureaucratic organizations basically started with the Dutch East India Company. In 1900 most people even in the Netherlands lived on farms. Now most people work for companies and companies are made of bureaucracy. Perhaps 30% of the employee are in some sense knowledge workers. They all interface with bureaucracy regularly. Everybody fills out forms or at least knows what that means. In 1870 most French people didn’t speak standard French. Standardization of language is a consequence of bureaucracy. Growing bureaucracy; it’s bloody obvious.

barry-cotter 5y ago

> The only evidence that bureaucracy is increasing that is given is … a Twitter poll? If the thing you are talking about is bloody obvious people are often willing to take it on faith or to use low quality evidence as gesturing towards an idea. Bureaucracy has been increasing on a long run trend since the invention of writing. Record keeping, procedures and laws are among the earliest uses of writing. More humans both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population than ever before are literate, i.e. capable of productively taking part in a bureaucracy. Universal schooling makes people more obedient to orders, more accepting of ranking and less creative, less likely to fuck up standard procedure. Non-state non-religious bureaucratic organizations basically started with the Dutch East India Company. In 1900 most people even in the Netherlands lived on farms. Now most people work for companies and companies are made of bureaucracy. Perhaps 30% of the employee are in some sense knowledge workers. They all interface with bureaucracy regularly. Everybody fills out forms or at least knows what that means. In 1870 most French people didn’t speak standard French. Standardization of language is a consequence of bureaucracy. Growing bureaucracy; it’s bloody obvious.