Just discovered your blog, and particularly enjoyed this post. I personally think a lot about antifragility and how to build it into systems and lives to maximize long-term gains, but this feels like an interesting counterpoint to the Inevitable March of Progress. Maybe there's an argument to be made for focusing on short-term wins.
The ideal of spirituality striving striving for the heights was doomed to clash with the materialistic earth-bound passion to conquer matter and master the world.This change became visible at the "time of renaissance". The word means "rebirth" and it referred to the renewal of the antique spirit.We know today that the spirit was chiefly a mask; it was not the spirit of antiquity that was reborn but the spirit of medieval Christianity that underwent strange pagan transformations,exchanging the heavenly Goal for an earthly one, (that's was my conclusion and concern for historical progress and understanding the depths of Glorious Al Qur'an al-kareem for understanding the roots of eschatology , not to reflect the Christian and Jewish eschatology but Understand The Last Message and Revelation about the time,age, hour and Day of Judgment ) and the vertical of Gothic style for a horizontal prospective(voyages of discovery, explanation of the world and of nature). The subsequent developments that led to the Enlightenment and The French Revolution have produced a world wide situation which can be called " antichristian " in a sense that confirms the early Christian anticipation of the " End of Time". It is as if, with the coming of Christ, opposites that were latent till then had become manifest, or as if a pendulum had swung violently to one side and were now carrying out the complimentary movement in the opposite direction.No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless it's roots reach down to hell.
I think you're correct and tower defense is a good metaphor. It's just entropy. Civilizations are no different to individuals, they have habits and at some point stop thinking because it's easier not to. I attribute a big chunk of our problems to an aging population - there are probably all sorts of institutions that should exist but don't. An AI assisting somebody in making sense of the building regulations, a medical record system that made sense - it's wave after wave of legacy bullshit that sort of makes sense and sort of doesn't.
Just discovered your blog, and particularly enjoyed this post. I personally think a lot about antifragility and how to build it into systems and lives to maximize long-term gains, but this feels like an interesting counterpoint to the Inevitable March of Progress. Maybe there's an argument to be made for focusing on short-term wins.
It should be noted that part of the point of liberalism is stability, because it's supposed to lower the stakes of disputes. (This idea is described on several Slate Star Codex posts, e.g. part 2.5 of https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ and part 3 of https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-community-and-civilization/ .) However, the basic idea you're describing, that entropy makes an entirely stable system impossible and makes it difficult to preserve any system in the long term, is clearly true.
The ideal of spirituality striving striving for the heights was doomed to clash with the materialistic earth-bound passion to conquer matter and master the world.This change became visible at the "time of renaissance". The word means "rebirth" and it referred to the renewal of the antique spirit.We know today that the spirit was chiefly a mask; it was not the spirit of antiquity that was reborn but the spirit of medieval Christianity that underwent strange pagan transformations,exchanging the heavenly Goal for an earthly one, (that's was my conclusion and concern for historical progress and understanding the depths of Glorious Al Qur'an al-kareem for understanding the roots of eschatology , not to reflect the Christian and Jewish eschatology but Understand The Last Message and Revelation about the time,age, hour and Day of Judgment ) and the vertical of Gothic style for a horizontal prospective(voyages of discovery, explanation of the world and of nature). The subsequent developments that led to the Enlightenment and The French Revolution have produced a world wide situation which can be called " antichristian " in a sense that confirms the early Christian anticipation of the " End of Time". It is as if, with the coming of Christ, opposites that were latent till then had become manifest, or as if a pendulum had swung violently to one side and were now carrying out the complimentary movement in the opposite direction.No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless it's roots reach down to hell.
From : Aion Carl Jung
Add (my observation)
I think you're correct and tower defense is a good metaphor. It's just entropy. Civilizations are no different to individuals, they have habits and at some point stop thinking because it's easier not to. I attribute a big chunk of our problems to an aging population - there are probably all sorts of institutions that should exist but don't. An AI assisting somebody in making sense of the building regulations, a medical record system that made sense - it's wave after wave of legacy bullshit that sort of makes sense and sort of doesn't.
Maybe we can't win, but "they" can't either. There will always be a spark of hope.