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Analects

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on-politics-and-power

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Analects

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On Politics and Power

stuff On the ways people organise themselves

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Control the water, control the people. Today’s water is energy, social media, infrastructure. We’re coerced through convenience, not malice. There are many vectors for control—we don’t need to hand them over.

Hydraulic Despotism

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If you control the water, you control the people: Karl Wittfogel’s theory of hydraulic civilisations gives us a tidy little insight I think is worth extracting. Today ‘water’ is many things: water, electricity, social media and it has some interesting implications. There are some better theories to get after this insight of ours, but better doesn’t mean interesting, and none sound nearly as sexy as Hydraulic Despotism. So I’m going to bring it back.

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connection digital-architecture on-being-fruitful on-culture on-ethics on-leadership on-politics-and-power wealth-architecture collective-architecture thought-architecture

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The ‘Great Man’ theory of history has the history of ideas moved forward by individuals. But by thinking of these as ‘Great Ideas’, or better ‘spirits’ of ideas, we’re encouraged to examine their motivations, which is surprisingly effective.

Great Spirits of History

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There’s this quote that floats around sometimes. It goes something like:‘If you don’t do the thinking, the thinking will be done for you’. This is usually presented like a bad thing, but really it’s often the only way to navigate the complexity of the world. Here’s one little tool for doing just that.

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betterment gratification on-(un)happiness on-culture on-politics-and-power on-thinking-and-reasoning thought-architecture

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Glossolalia has a unique pattern of neural activity, distinct from psychopathologies and even other trance-like states. So, the feeling underneath is special, but the actual speaking itself seems learned. It makes you wonder where that feeling comes from.

Speaking in tongues

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‘Speaking in Tongues’, or glossolalia, is one of those fascinating things that first got me interested in the brain. At church, as a kid, you’d see people close their eyes, raise their hands in the air, and start murmuring in languages unknown, filled with some force they couldn’t explain. But a phenomenon so widespread, found in many religions and many cultures, across time and place, should surely be found in the brain activity of other activities? The answer is, maybe not, and maybe what the brain does tell is leaves us with a more interesting question.

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gratification on-culture on-leadership on-politics-and-power on-the-nature-of-things spiritual-architecture

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The utility of violence isn’t in the violence itself, but only in the threat of it. It creates immediate behaviour change, but only for so long as the threat is active.

The value of violence

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Violence is such an unavoidable feature of life that it tends to appear in any conversation that starts about half a bottle in. And in any given wine-fuelled conversation that broaches the subject of violence people usually assume that violence is necessary, or that it’s some kind of pathology. What these perspectives mean is that any conversation that circles the issue of violence will end in a fight between people who are for violence (or inured to it), and people who are against it (or don’t think it’s real). This isn’t really a very interesting conversation to me. A more interesting question to me, is when is violence actually useful? So, rather than asking questions about the necessity of it, we might be better served asking questions about the utility. Because looking at utility highlights something that would probably make us think of violence a little differently.

The utility of violence isn’t in the violence itself, but only in the threat of it. It creates immediate behaviour change, but only for so long as the threat is active.

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betterment collective-architecture on-being-fruitful on-politics-and-power somatic-architecture wealth-architecture

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Nudging doesn’t work because people aren’t thinking hard enough. Everything is choice architecture, so look to the way you build things in the first place or turn to our deepest motivations—our communities.

Everything is Choice Architecture

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Nudging is a buzzword that floats around places where consultants or policy-makers can be found. In their mouths it refers to the act of encouraging some meaningful change in behaviour by making a small change to… you know… something or other. And then everyone kind of trails off. I will leave you to read around about the criticisms of nudging. There are plenty. But I think these criticisms often miss something that really is worth thinking about.

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betterment collective-architecture connection digital-architecture gratification on-(un)happiness on-being-fruitful on-culture on-leadership on-politics-and-power somatic-architecture wealth-architecture

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