Social Musings
I have been cogitating on the New York Times article lambasting Jared Diamond’s work. [Link] I previously blogged on how the "each case is so special" adherents of political correctness were missing the point of aggregation and analysis. This is not to say that Diamond is always right; in fact, much of what he has to say is inaccurate because he fails to carry through to the final, supported conclusion. If this were occasional one could attribute it to oversight but it is so consistent it indicates something pathological.
Despite what Diamond says about societies collapsing, the fact remains that many do so for reasons that can be brought down to a mixture of laziness and stupidity, something that might be well likened to an opposite of enlightened self-interest. The classic of this are those who settle in an environment where their survival needs are well provided. As a result, they have little need to develop competitive capabilities, advance their technology. In general they can be lazy and survive rather nicely until someone moves in who has developed their competitive capabilities and the newcomers quickly take over, usually destroying the original society in the process.
Another variant of this is that the society is doing something negative to their environment. This may be as simple as the population increasing until it exceeds the renewable carrying capacity of the environment, but usually it is more negative than that. The society eventually realizes that disaster is looming but is somehow unable to avoid it. They often lack the technology, usually because they have become lazy and do not want to spend the effort or the resources developing the technology even when they realize they need it. More commonly, there seems to be some denialist aspect that the status quo ante will not be maintained indefinitely. Easter Island seems an example of this, regardless of which collapse mechanism one subscribes to. In effect, folks try desperately to ignore the disaster until it either kills them or drives them off.
Now, let me consider Greater Metropolitan Arab. Like most of the town governments in Nawth Alibam, and perhaps, all over the Yankee republic, the Arab government spends a considerable amount of money trying to attract people to join their citizen rolls, and thereby swell the tax coffers, but spends little in the way of services for those people. Case in point: giftmas and new year’s day both fall on Tuesday this season. Because the Arab government has no concern for environmental matters, and has contracted out their garbage and recyclables collection to a low bidder who consistently fails to meet contract because of inadequate equipment and personnel, it has been decided that (a) there will be no recyclable collection on the two holidays and indeed no collection for those people whose recyclables are collected on Tuesday until the Tuesday after new year’s day, and (b) giftmas wrapping paper and plastic containers will not be collected in the recyclables for anyone. Yet two of the materials that can be most easily and effectively recycled are paper and plastics.
Another case in point. The Washing Times has an article on how the followers of the former Vice President from Tennessee have taken on the characteristics of fundamentalist believers. [Link] In effect they have frozen the scientific information, which has consistently been not quite accurate with this pundit, and turned it into dogma comparable to the most zealous of fundamentalists. Sad to say this looks like yet another incidence of social laziness and stupidity where enquiry is turned to stone and raised onto a pedestal. Sadly, this further complements the opposing party’s denial of science in general except for those specific aspects they may "spin" to their agenda. In effect, it would appear that partisan politics, and perhaps politics in general, may be another form of lazy-stupid.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
