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“The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for a free and independent life.”
Claude Bernard
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“The accumulation of machines transforms the economy.”
Jean Marchal
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Losing access to water for 3 ½ days because of a burst pipe reminds you of how dependent one’s life is to many structural things of what we may call “the machine of life”. It also is a harsh reminder of the fragility of the everyday structure of life. Yeah. I have clearly understood that everything is connected with everything and is kind of banal to suggest everything is reciprocally dependent, but when it becomes reality it makes you reflect a bit more about the dependence of ‘things,’. You ponder just a bit more that everything is a piece, of a piece, and consequently, when one piece slips everything is modified and can actually threaten the whole structure and activities.
It was Marx who stated the more we advance into the new world, the more is economic life dependent on technical development. Life has almost become dependent upon the machines of life; kind of an insane skunkworks of progress. This gets exacerbated with the uncomfortable truth that as we, humans, derive our lives through increasing independence (skills associated with our economic progress) that farther our skills, focus and understanding draw AWAY from the machines of life. Our lives have become almost completely independent of the machines which, cruelly, are the origins of our independence. Yeah. Our own power and success and growth has no direct relationship with use of the machines. In an odd way machines offer the structural value from which we leverage our ‘transactional value’, but as we pursue our Life’s transactions, we have devalued the structure in place – until the structure is gone or broken. It is at that point that many of us, useless participants in the fixing or running of the structural machine, realize our value creation is threatened or modified and we are dependent upon (a) the machines and (b) the managers of the machines. Our relation with the machines of the world comes into a harsh light of reality and, well, its not pretty.
Everyday social and economic applications are made possible by technology, which is part of the machine structure, as well as the machine infrastructure in totality which makes life chug along. The machine is the most important unspectacular aspect of all of human’s activities including, but not exclusively, productive activity.
The machines, and the mechanization of life, are maybe not only the enablers of existence, but I imagine
one could argue every advancement in the machine structure is existence itself – at least in most modern societies. Everything the machine structure touches transforms the humans and the human world. Machines and the machine structure have become a social necessity. but they also structure labor and has economic repercussions. The water flowing into every home and every apartment and every business is, well, planned, therefore, its lack of flow has become unplanned. Human freedom to pursue wealth and their lives really has no existence except to the degree that we are subject to the degree that machine conditions permit the means to be discovered. Which leads me back that ‘unplanned’ thought. To neglect the machine context of humanity is to live in a dreamworld, yet, we do so – all the time. Freedom is a condition of the machines. Yeah. Me. The guy who talks about humancentric and humans driving progress just said that. It is a bit humbling to be reminded that while many of us espouse that humans are at the center of all progress, that humans are often not the dominant variable in that progress and the reality is much of or existence can exist only in relation to not only other people, but the machine infrastructure. And maybe that is my point today. Water, computers, the internet, electricity … they provide us certain degrees of freedom to pursue many of the things in life. Let’s call them “the condition for a free and independent life.” When they get modified, even maybe in some smallish ways, everything else gets modified – even us, even daily life. Ponder.
<and the self identities that are inevitably attached to these beliefs>. Needless to say much of that backlash is a bit unhealthy and a lot unmoored to accepted reality.
Far too many loudmouthed people have ripped the meaning out of the word, twisted the value of the word making it seem valueless, and ultimately created an environment in which we demonize the entire process of trying to reach compromise.
compromise on a specific issue>. What this means is that, as with most things in Life, we enthusiastically embrace the conceptual behavior and balk at the actual behavior.
The balance of actually getting a glimpse of that ‘something’ and not having rushed thru some important moment versus the missing feeling.
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It is too simplistic to suggest any society, or nation, is divided. The reality is that society, and communities, have become fragmented, each isolating into its own cocoon of mindsets, attitudes, beliefs and even performative metrics (proof). If we step back, this is a natural consequence of years of rhetoric and unhealthy narratives. What else would we do after years of businesses suggesting business was a war and the other businesses were out to get us and it was a battle of us versus them, kill or be killed. Or your church is telling you only you will go to heaven and everyone else is designated for hell (or heathens). Or some Cause suggests it is Armageddon if you do not agree with them and if you don’t you are part of the problem. Even issues like climate change, abortion and vaccinations have become battlegrounds of us versus them. And the politicians, well, they are an onslaught of ‘the other party is evil and will destroy this country” or “that country is evil and out to destroy us” or whatever us versus them derivative they can create. Each, individually, divides, and each contribute to fragmentation. There are two main consequences to all this which leads to the creation of smaller groupings, communities, of like minded people:
Technology, in and of itself, is nothing. Without people, without people generating content, it is a passive tool regenerating itself to its own purposes. Yet. Once humans become involved technology begins to amplify – amplify divides, fragments, communities and tribes. It is within the fragmentation aspect in which we begin to pause on the benefits of technology with regard to society. The fragmentation, the phrasing of ideas, ideologies, values, norms and actual ideological commitments just begin to blur the greater truths associated with each. Fragments get emphasized to strengthens pieces of views all the while blurring larger issues and societal coherence. The extension of technology into our lives has only seemed to accomplish the fact that people everywhere sensing their control over their lives slipping away as the world becomes increasingly complex. With that mindset/belief people begin discerning specific scenarios within which they can find meaning, self identification & success and then go about creating a subsystem, a likeminded community, where desired actions and direction are created, further intensified by a sense of their own survival within the larger system. There is a general feeling of remoteness from the centers of decision making so they create their own decisonmaking centers. These choices are supported by a feeling (which becomes a belief) that those in power don’t care what “people like me think” which only increases an increasing sense how little capacity individuals, alone, feel they have to shape events. Individuals recognize they cannot flex power to manipulate any meaningful levers of control, they end up groping around almost desperately for ways to bring back some order and sense to their lives, and inevitably smaller likeminded communities are forged. What ends up happening is that society becomes an interaction between these likeminded communities and their changing micro boundaries at a community level all trying to exist in a macro larger system attempting to shape boundaries and pull levers itself for the collective good. The consequence of this conflict/tension tends to make the likeminded communities only double down and increase close identification with those within that particular group. This means that society has become fragmented and not divided.
In order to have some legitimacy and just survive within the larger system the likeminded communities construct scenarios, assume responsibilities, and assign analytics to everything they are involved in. In other words, likeminded communities have their own analytics, they have their own narratives and, unfortunately, sometimes they have their own facts. In fact, the larger the macro societal crisis the more likely it will involve a shift at the subgroup level performance criteria that they will attach to their own legitimacy. This expanded use of metrics may dispose people to rethink what has long been taken for granted and decide to shape their own performance criteria themselves. I would be remiss I remiss if I didn’t point out that media plays a role in subgroup performance criteria development. For example, what Fox News cites is important can often become a community criteria. This criteria becomes a measurement for the larger system – even if the larger system may not have the same criteria. So, while the larger system may actually be quite effective in totality, if not the very specific issue at hand, the performance analytics are not aligned and the conflict only creates further dissonance between the groups and the system.
community, from all views within a healthy community, to recognize that humanity – even theirs – is lagging our technology. It may be difficult for a fragmented society, specifcally the smaller communities themselves, to see beyond their loose talk about obsolescence and the rot at the core of our society and institutions and business when the existence of that community may be grounded in some apocalyptic view about every systemic crisis. It would behoove each of these smaller communities to understand it stretches credibility to extend each individual systemic indictment to the entire structure of business, government, justice, and institutions. Every debatable action does not demand some mandate to destroy the entire system and every disappointment or concern about the larger system is not a mandate to shrink away to a smaller community mindset. We need some optimism, not just in humanity, but in the grander systems and institutions. Not blind faith, but optimism. I always recommend reading Rutger Bregman’s Humankind to remind everyone about humanity. I recommend for the ‘We’, those who seek to find solutions to what seems like a dysfunctional society, we need to recognize the difference between fragmentation and divided because the solutions are different for each. Divided is about building bridges and fragmentation is about building coherence. Ponder.
thanks to the people around you, but thanks for some plans not going to shit and some going to shit and you created some things to go well and maybe, just maybe, you had more favorite days then you think you did.
Yeah.
This is part of my series of things I learned working the security company job I had in college.
someone on the list or just say no (all while he has one eye on caterers wandering in, random special guests and keeping riff raff out of the way). Here is where he shared an even bigger lesson to me (the kid). “Nope. He can’t come in” (“oh shit” bubble over my head), but he then says “hold on. Let me come with you and we can tell him together”.
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I walked over to Nick Nolte, who was sporting a wonderful Oakland Raiders warm up jacket, and asked him if he had a field pass. He wasn’t a jerk, he kind of looked a bit sheepish, and said “no, could you make an exception?” (kind of doing the guy thing making a side eye to the woman hanging on his arm like ‘could you help a guy out’). I said. “Give me a minute.”
You can be a jerk or you can find a solution. Anyone can follow rules, but not everyone tries to do the right thing. The NFL, and the Coliseum, clearly had rules that should have been followed. Someone didn’t, probably because he was a celebrity and some young security guard was too intimidated to do the right thing, and someone needed to solve it – without being a jackass. Yeah. I dealt with some celebrities who were real dicks, but for the most part most celebrities were respectful if you were respectful to them. They all have jobs and they know other people have jobs to do. I would also note that I learned titles, professions, status, are irrelevant if you make them irrelevant. I can honestly say after this job I was never intimidated by who was in a room nor have I ever been star-struck by anyone. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out all of what I just said is just the business of being in the business. Ponder.
Which leads me to The Starwood.
This is a CSC (that security job I had in college) lesson. The idea is practice makes perfect (and try that lesson out on a short attention span 19 year old college boy). So. While you have probably heard the practice makes perfect thought a zillion times before try out this story as maybe a different way of learning it.
Anyway. Pink Floyd. They had 7 shows (plus the three rehearsals). You know. They could have worked their way into a groove. Nope. 3 full rehearsals and rocked it from note one in show one. By maybe by night three I could tell you without seeing the stage where they were in building that stupid Wall by what was playing. By night seven I wasn’t comfortably numb. Just numb. And tempted to shoot myself I was so tired of it. But also by the last show I could tell you exactly what was going to happen not by the music, but by what time it was. The band wasn’t looking at a clock, but in their heads they knew exactly how much time they had. This was rehearsed and amazing. And, oh by the way, it didn’t look “practiced or stiff” (which is the typical argument young people have for not wanting to rehearse). Instead, because they knew it so well they could relax and figure out where they could ad lib a little.
It is interesting. All those bands do it. You may not realize it, but it is driven by pride in their work. They want you to recognize the important stuff – their music – and rehearsing insures nothing stupid gets in the way of that.