2 ms·

The competent bureaucracy part is really the lynchpin. Because bureaucracies are so incompetent, criminal syndicates just run circles around them. This is why t

by api 12y ago

The competent bureaucracy part is really the lynchpin. Because bureaucracies are so incompetent, criminal syndicates just run circles around them. This is why the mafia state looks like the logical endpoint-- basically anarcho-syndicalism, and it's not a utopia. I think this is also why the most bureaucratic states -- the USSR and Communist China -- have been the first into this brave new future. The criminal mammals triumphed easily over those byzantine dinosaurs. The bottom line is that we have the scientific method and we have the discipline of engineering, and those together can reliably produce progress in the technical realm. We have no set of tools or techniques that reliably produces progress in the human realm. There are no institutions charged with understanding and healing us psychologically. The closest we come is to pop pills, and even that is poorly done -- diagnosis is incredibly unscientific and haphazard. I personally blame -- directly and indirectly -- the war on drugs. I am not one of those people who thinks that dosing everyone with LSD would create some kind of utopia. I've known too many drug users to think that. But beneath the pop culture misuse of those substances, there was some really visionary research into genuinely understanding and even changing deep human psychology at work back in those days. The ridiculous moral panic that followed had the effect of shutting down almost all of that research, even some of the non-psychedlics-related stuff, and leaving us with nothing but talk-talk psychotherapy and the ham fisted pill pushing approach. To this day attempting to delve deeply into human psychology in an active way immediately leads into realms since declared utterly taboo.

ArkyBeagle 12y ago
There is a point of view that Stalin and Mao were essentially criminal in a way that national leaders have not been since the 19th Century. So a Putin and whatever they have in China actually represents a modicum of progress. Russia's history at the level of empire is pretty nasty. We may never be able to get out of our own way. Who knows? Not a big pill fan ( although they've absolutely gotten better for people with real brain-chemistry problems ) but these days, it's easier than ever to identify bad sources of information and understand what's gone wrong. My parents' (Silent) generation had no idea why there was a Depression; mine actually has a few theories. The emphasis on LSD as "better living through chemistry" was as much about advertising-propaganda as anything else. Regardless of any War on Drugs, that went badly.

by api 12y ago

ArkyBeagle 12y ago

There is a point of view that Stalin and Mao were essentially criminal in a way that national leaders have not been since the 19th Century. So a Putin and whatever they have in China actually represents a modicum of progress. Russia's history at the level of empire is pretty nasty. We may never be able to get out of our own way. Who knows? Not a big pill fan ( although they've absolutely gotten better for people with real brain-chemistry problems ) but these days, it's easier than ever to identify bad sources of information and understand what's gone wrong. My parents' (Silent) generation had no idea why there was a Depression; mine actually has a few theories. The emphasis on LSD as "better living through chemistry" was as much about advertising-propaganda as anything else. Regardless of any War on Drugs, that went badly.