6 ms·

And yet our economic and social systems have never been more decentralised...

by LatteLazy 4y ago

andsoitis 4y ago
Can you elaborate?
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  In my modern, urban, life I have 1000 different options for my food supply or friendships or housing or employment. Aside from a very unengaged, far away, government there is no centralised entity in my life. And even that I can replace by moving country. 100 years ago, there was one major employer in my area (east London), a few grocers and bakers, people's activities were tightly controlled and linked to family status. Participation in all elements of economic and social life was tightly controlled by a small clique of economic, clerical and political elites. People think about centralisation as a corporate or government thing and a unitary national authority. But it's not. It's part of every later of society. When we lived in tribes, the chief had totally centralised power over almost everything. Villages were the same with an overlord somewhere you'd never see. Towns were lighter but still quite centralised. Modern cities and urban life is about as decentralized as it is possible to be. That's my understanding of centralisation. Sorry it's not better explained.
gort19 4y ago
That seems about as far from true as a statement can be. Can you give an example?
jryhjythtr 4y ago
Meta and Visa suddenly go permanently offline. What does the social and economic landscape look like now?
- stickyricky 4y ago
  I go to the bank and get cash. Businesses accept that cash for goods and services. I observe no difference in my social media habits because I do not use Meta products.
  - jryhjythtr 4y ago
    Good for you, Mr. Exception-to-the-rule. (Btw, the same is true for me too).
    - nonrandomstring 4y ago
      And me. So your "exception" hypothesis is getting weaker :) You've really got me thinking. Is there a word for that thing when "everyone knows" what they think "everyone is doing", but once they start to dig deeper it turns out nobody really is? Everyone is pretending to, because they think that's what everybody should say and do? Mass delusion? Group fallacy? Fashion? Groupthink? None quite capture it.
      - jryhjythtr 4y ago
        Sample bias. HN crowd != people I know in real life.
      - mypalmike 4y ago
        I think what's happening here is selection bias. The people who proudly have no Meta accounts are replying to each other saying "me too". The hundreds of others who were reading did not reply.
        nonrandomstring 4y ago
        Sample bias is a thing, sure. I'm alluding to something a bit more interesting, I hope. We don't have a way to test those hundreds of voices comprising the supposed silent majority. I'm saying that when/(BIG if) one does - via some hitherto undevised ingenious experiment which always yields truth - we find that no... in fact everyone is at best ambivalent, but mostly going along with what they think the majority view is. I'm sure there's a name/concept for this in group dynamics. Consensus mythology? (I'm just making that up) A hallmark is that interrogating the group yields one answer, but each individual considered privately will give you a very different answer. But it's not "group-think" I'm talking about, because that implies a more overt pressure. Rather it emerges in the absence of coordination amongst an implied majority when there exists a loud propaganda message designating some other group a minority. I think this effect has important implications in the kind of 50:50 + swing elections we've seen over the past few years. For example, in Brexit, a mass of lethargic voters assumed "everyone will vote against" and didn't verify the reality by asking lots of diverse friends. It's not that people are trapped in actual bubbles so much as bubbles of their own mind based on assumptions about those around them. Sorry, that's probably a long and clumsy way of saying something obvious.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  It's a little rough for about a week and by a month out everything's basically completely fine.
- vishnugupta 4y ago
  India has its own payment processing stack, UPI so I expect Visa going down shouldn’t lead to a major disruption. It’s yet to be tested however so we won’t know until Visa actually goes down. WhatsApp going down on the other hand will be a big pain as lots of businesses and people rely on it. Though I expect them to figure out alternatives within a few weeks.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Meta goes offline, nothing of any importance changes. Visa goes offline, people switch to mastercard or use cash. Now compare that to living in the wild west, and the only town in 100miles bans you because you're slight different to them.
jasmer 4y ago
Yea, not really. The wild west was wild. People used to make up their own banknotes, there were fraud and schemes everywhere. We take for granted that our bank won't steal our deposits, that's a new concept. Most of that is derived from some degree of 'centralization' - that said - it's definitely not this 1-to-many scheme that the language implies. The Fed has immense power, but is not really in your business. You can exchange money with whomever you want (almost) and it's none of the Feds' business. Much like 'AI' I think this word 'decentralization' triggers something within. It's worth considering that impulse (i.e. freedom is really important, and we should think about it), but also needs constant contextualizing.
- Ericson2314 4y ago
  But also, the wild west was founded upon the US wars with the native americans (centralized) and railroad monopolies (centralized).
  - jasmer 4y ago
    Good point, except neither of those were as centralized as you're implying.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  What your describing is just a different, more local form of centralisation. If your bank manager gets to refuse to give you your money, he has all the power. That's very very centralised, even if it's centralised in him, not in a CEO or a president. I have 4 accounts at 4 different banks. If one of them refused to hand the cash over, even without any redress, I have 3 other accounts to fall back on. So my life is much less centralised than Wild West Bill. The same applies to almost all elements of life. Back in the wild west, no one would date you if you didn't go to church. The priest literally had centralised power to refuse you a partner (and God help you if you were gay or the wrong colour or from a "bad" family). Today no one knows or cares. Very very decentralized. Ditto employment or housing or crime and punishment.
  - jasmer 4y ago

And yet our economic and social systems have never been more decentralised...

andsoitis 4y ago

Can you elaborate?

LatteLazy 4y ago
In my modern, urban, life I have 1000 different options for my food supply or friendships or housing or employment. Aside from a very unengaged, far away, government there is no centralised entity in my life. And even that I can replace by moving country. 100 years ago, there was one major employer in my area (east London), a few grocers and bakers, people's activities were tightly controlled and linked to family status. Participation in all elements of economic and social life was tightly controlled by a small clique of economic, clerical and political elites. People think about centralisation as a corporate or government thing and a unitary national authority. But it's not. It's part of every later of society. When we lived in tribes, the chief had totally centralised power over almost everything. Villages were the same with an overlord somewhere you'd never see. Towns were lighter but still quite centralised. Modern cities and urban life is about as decentralized as it is possible to be. That's my understanding of centralisation. Sorry it's not better explained.

gort19 4y ago

That seems about as far from true as a statement can be. Can you give an example?

jryhjythtr 4y ago

Meta and Visa suddenly go permanently offline. What does the social and economic landscape look like now?

stickyricky 4y ago
I go to the bank and get cash. Businesses accept that cash for goods and services. I observe no difference in my social media habits because I do not use Meta products.
- jryhjythtr 4y ago
  Good for you, Mr. Exception-to-the-rule. (Btw, the same is true for me too).
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    And me. So your "exception" hypothesis is getting weaker :) You've really got me thinking. Is there a word for that thing when "everyone knows" what they think "everyone is doing", but once they start to dig deeper it turns out nobody really is? Everyone is pretending to, because they think that's what everybody should say and do? Mass delusion? Group fallacy? Fashion? Groupthink? None quite capture it.
    - jryhjythtr 4y ago
      Sample bias. HN crowd != people I know in real life.
    - mypalmike 4y ago
      I think what's happening here is selection bias. The people who proudly have no Meta accounts are replying to each other saying "me too". The hundreds of others who were reading did not reply.
      - nonrandomstring 4y ago
        Sample bias is a thing, sure. I'm alluding to something a bit more interesting, I hope. We don't have a way to test those hundreds of voices comprising the supposed silent majority. I'm saying that when/(BIG if) one does - via some hitherto undevised ingenious experiment which always yields truth - we find that no... in fact everyone is at best ambivalent, but mostly going along with what they think the majority view is. I'm sure there's a name/concept for this in group dynamics. Consensus mythology? (I'm just making that up) A hallmark is that interrogating the group yields one answer, but each individual considered privately will give you a very different answer. But it's not "group-think" I'm talking about, because that implies a more overt pressure. Rather it emerges in the absence of coordination amongst an implied majority when there exists a loud propaganda message designating some other group a minority. I think this effect has important implications in the kind of 50:50 + swing elections we've seen over the past few years. For example, in Brexit, a mass of lethargic voters assumed "everyone will vote against" and didn't verify the reality by asking lots of diverse friends. It's not that people are trapped in actual bubbles so much as bubbles of their own mind based on assumptions about those around them. Sorry, that's probably a long and clumsy way of saying something obvious.
yamtaddle 4y ago
It's a little rough for about a week and by a month out everything's basically completely fine.
vishnugupta 4y ago
India has its own payment processing stack, UPI so I expect Visa going down shouldn’t lead to a major disruption. It’s yet to be tested however so we won’t know until Visa actually goes down. WhatsApp going down on the other hand will be a big pain as lots of businesses and people rely on it. Though I expect them to figure out alternatives within a few weeks.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Meta goes offline, nothing of any importance changes. Visa goes offline, people switch to mastercard or use cash. Now compare that to living in the wild west, and the only town in 100miles bans you because you're slight different to them.

jasmer 4y ago

Yea, not really. The wild west was wild. People used to make up their own banknotes, there were fraud and schemes everywhere. We take for granted that our bank won't steal our deposits, that's a new concept. Most of that is derived from some degree of 'centralization' - that said - it's definitely not this 1-to-many scheme that the language implies. The Fed has immense power, but is not really in your business. You can exchange money with whomever you want (almost) and it's none of the Feds' business. Much like 'AI' I think this word 'decentralization' triggers something within. It's worth considering that impulse (i.e. freedom is really important, and we should think about it), but also needs constant contextualizing.

Ericson2314 4y ago
But also, the wild west was founded upon the US wars with the native americans (centralized) and railroad monopolies (centralized).
- jasmer 4y ago
  Good point, except neither of those were as centralized as you're implying.
LatteLazy 4y ago
What your describing is just a different, more local form of centralisation. If your bank manager gets to refuse to give you your money, he has all the power. That's very very centralised, even if it's centralised in him, not in a CEO or a president. I have 4 accounts at 4 different banks. If one of them refused to hand the cash over, even without any redress, I have 3 other accounts to fall back on. So my life is much less centralised than Wild West Bill. The same applies to almost all elements of life. Back in the wild west, no one would date you if you didn't go to church. The priest literally had centralised power to refuse you a partner (and God help you if you were gay or the wrong colour or from a "bad" family). Today no one knows or cares. Very very decentralized. Ditto employment or housing or crime and punishment.
- jasmer 4y ago