Where is the sweet spot? Maybe when the value of a child is such that a society still perpetuates itself. Having children is a good proxy for this tension between efficiency and meaningfulness. Maybe the sweet spot is the tipping point between replacement and sub-replacement birth rates. In most of the west this was in the 70’s.
Bullseye! Back in the 1950s, we didn't have much money, didn't take exotic vacations, didn't get TV sets until the mid-50s....But we had tremendous community and relationships that have lasted decades, often until death...I used to conduct informal polls in my favorite restaurant, asking people if there was a decade they would; like to return to....most picked the 1950s...
The central tendency is specialization within the foundational domain of meaning. The rest is primarily a support structure allowing unblinking focus on efficiency in direction of monetary velocity.
We observe the current "crisis of competence," and it is very real. It is an outgrowth of specialization in service to efficiency.
The essay is correct to highlight the shaving of trivial vestiges of inefficiency. Resources are finite and within the complex, specialized roles that constitute modern western livelihoods, competition increases in direct correlation with entropy.
Those ascendent within the competition for scarce resources, are well aware of how their specialization increases their fungibility. This creates the "always on" workplace cultures that characterize our time and place in history.
It's a vicious, self-reinforcing feedback loop constituting a demoralizing "race to the bottom." Criteria for success are not objective, they are always relative. As each percentage point is shaved, the averages are thereby moved; we compete against ourselves to the sustainable profit of no one.
“Thus efficiency does not simply change how we obtain things; it also changes how we value them. Struggle and scarcity deepen meaning, …”
Wonderful and thoughtful essay. However, it concerns only the social relationships among people within societies while ignoring the physical aspects of such a modern lifestyle as you decry. The physical drudgery of centuries past, which you lament, is part and parcel of our genetic heritage. In short, we have adapted to thrive in such a harsh lifestyle over millennia.
The Industrial Revolution, then the Technological Revolution, of the last couple of centuries has happened suddenly with little time for humanity—at least in the Western world—to adapt. Hence we, as physical beings, are in poor health amidst abundance never dreamed about by our forefathers. Metabolic Syndrome—leading to chronic disease such as obesity, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, affects most all of us in one form or another. Hell, we even suffer from constant *eating* throughout our waking day.
Modern medicine can only do so much to support a lifestyle we are not meant to live via millennia of evolution.
You are right. This is another important aspect of modernity and increasing evolutionary mismatch. On the hand, we have been saved from drudgery. On the other, we often overeat and don't exercise enough. I think the important thing is to be honest about tradeoffs and to think about the gains *and* losses of increasing technological sophistication.
I believe the key is to be efficient in some aspects so that you have time to be “inefficient” in the things that matter.
For example, I have streamlined my work process so it takes me 175 hours to research a potential investment rather than 600 hours as before. That way I have 425 hours back to spend with family, friends or my hobbies.
That is the theory…but in reality I still struggle to redeploy those 425 hours with family and friends rather than “taking advantage” and using some of those 425 hours for another project.
Love this essay. Very thought-provoking. What I struggle with though is the initial pull of toward efficiency. It's attractive for a reason. I'd rather see chess get mastered and become boring and we push to a new equilibrium. 3-player chess anyone?
Excellent. I have just watched great Peter Santanello documentary about rich Cherokee community in North Carolina. Kids get 500.000. USD upon adulthood and then further payments, paid health care, education, etc. All paid from casino profits. Drugs and domestic violence are rampant in that community. I see connection with what you wrote here.
I haven't watched that, but we have a friend-of-a-friend who is native and got $ for years in the mail. It was a mess for him: he wanted to drink and fight, and the free money allowed him to do just that in lieu of building a life. He's finally becoming mature and responsible in his late 40's.
Here's my dumb but relevant story. When I was a young lad of six or seven, our church would make up paper sacks for the kids for Christmas. The crown jewel of the sack was a giant navel orange from Florida, larger and sweeter than any you could buy at the grocery store. I'm sure someone from the church mail ordered them but my family didn't have money for such luxuries when I was little.
The memory of those oranges is my touchstone to how precious things we now take for granted truly are. Any time I am tempted to be wasteful or grumpy about not having peanut M&Ms in the house, I think back to the ecstasy of each delicious slice and how I felt king for a day when eating my annual orange jewel.
This tradeoff is why I have a longstanding fascination with and respect for the Amish. They seem to be the only population on earth capable of seriously prioritizing meaning over convenience at scale. Even more impressive is that they can take on new technology for a while, assess whether it's really making life better or just more convenient, and then actually reject or restrict it instead of shambling on into a misery feedback loop as if humans have no capcity to discern and set the parameters of their own enviornment. In some cases they use tractors for farmwork but with steel wheels specifically designed to be uncomfortable and unsuitable on roads so that they won't be used as a car.
It seems obvious to me that any future worth persisting in - any future that doesn't render dystopia fiction obsolete - will have to involve Amish-like populations intentionally valuing meaning over convenience and only permitting some selective combination of technology, and that tech having intentionally contrived limitations. The psychological experience of the medieval village without the dysentery.
The market for newly made "dumb" phones shows general consumerist westerners are selectively capable of this, though I'm not sure it can be sustained at scale without a religious glue.
Also, your chess parallel is exactly why I never persued the game beyond an amatuer level. Humans kept playing after computers surpassed us, but the game itself became irreversibly computerized. Winning is hollow when virtually everything you can do has already been codified and rank-ordered with official jargon. We are not calibrated for such a disenchanted world.
Where is the sweet spot? Maybe when the value of a child is such that a society still perpetuates itself. Having children is a good proxy for this tension between efficiency and meaningfulness. Maybe the sweet spot is the tipping point between replacement and sub-replacement birth rates. In most of the west this was in the 70’s.
That makes sense to me
--Bo
Bullseye! Back in the 1950s, we didn't have much money, didn't take exotic vacations, didn't get TV sets until the mid-50s....But we had tremendous community and relationships that have lasted decades, often until death...I used to conduct informal polls in my favorite restaurant, asking people if there was a decade they would; like to return to....most picked the 1950s...
Interesting--my friends generally pick the 90s. Part of this, of course, is when one grew up. But some of the loss is real. Nostalgia is powerful.
--Bo
The central tendency is specialization within the foundational domain of meaning. The rest is primarily a support structure allowing unblinking focus on efficiency in direction of monetary velocity.
We observe the current "crisis of competence," and it is very real. It is an outgrowth of specialization in service to efficiency.
The essay is correct to highlight the shaving of trivial vestiges of inefficiency. Resources are finite and within the complex, specialized roles that constitute modern western livelihoods, competition increases in direct correlation with entropy.
Those ascendent within the competition for scarce resources, are well aware of how their specialization increases their fungibility. This creates the "always on" workplace cultures that characterize our time and place in history.
It's a vicious, self-reinforcing feedback loop constituting a demoralizing "race to the bottom." Criteria for success are not objective, they are always relative. As each percentage point is shaved, the averages are thereby moved; we compete against ourselves to the sustainable profit of no one.
I think Paul Kingsnorth would approve of this essay.
I'm embarrassed to say that I had never heard of him. I have now. Thanks!
--Bo
I dare say he would.
“Thus efficiency does not simply change how we obtain things; it also changes how we value them. Struggle and scarcity deepen meaning, …”
Wonderful and thoughtful essay. However, it concerns only the social relationships among people within societies while ignoring the physical aspects of such a modern lifestyle as you decry. The physical drudgery of centuries past, which you lament, is part and parcel of our genetic heritage. In short, we have adapted to thrive in such a harsh lifestyle over millennia.
The Industrial Revolution, then the Technological Revolution, of the last couple of centuries has happened suddenly with little time for humanity—at least in the Western world—to adapt. Hence we, as physical beings, are in poor health amidst abundance never dreamed about by our forefathers. Metabolic Syndrome—leading to chronic disease such as obesity, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, affects most all of us in one form or another. Hell, we even suffer from constant *eating* throughout our waking day.
Modern medicine can only do so much to support a lifestyle we are not meant to live via millennia of evolution.
You are right. This is another important aspect of modernity and increasing evolutionary mismatch. On the hand, we have been saved from drudgery. On the other, we often overeat and don't exercise enough. I think the important thing is to be honest about tradeoffs and to think about the gains *and* losses of increasing technological sophistication.
--Bo
I loved this article, spot on.
I believe the key is to be efficient in some aspects so that you have time to be “inefficient” in the things that matter.
For example, I have streamlined my work process so it takes me 175 hours to research a potential investment rather than 600 hours as before. That way I have 425 hours back to spend with family, friends or my hobbies.
That is the theory…but in reality I still struggle to redeploy those 425 hours with family and friends rather than “taking advantage” and using some of those 425 hours for another project.
Well we are all a “work in progress” project :)
Love this essay. Very thought-provoking. What I struggle with though is the initial pull of toward efficiency. It's attractive for a reason. I'd rather see chess get mastered and become boring and we push to a new equilibrium. 3-player chess anyone?
Superb essay. Kudos.
Excellent. I have just watched great Peter Santanello documentary about rich Cherokee community in North Carolina. Kids get 500.000. USD upon adulthood and then further payments, paid health care, education, etc. All paid from casino profits. Drugs and domestic violence are rampant in that community. I see connection with what you wrote here.
I haven't watched that, but we have a friend-of-a-friend who is native and got $ for years in the mail. It was a mess for him: he wanted to drink and fight, and the free money allowed him to do just that in lieu of building a life. He's finally becoming mature and responsible in his late 40's.
Bo, observations I had thought little about, thanks.
You bet!
--Bo
Here's my dumb but relevant story. When I was a young lad of six or seven, our church would make up paper sacks for the kids for Christmas. The crown jewel of the sack was a giant navel orange from Florida, larger and sweeter than any you could buy at the grocery store. I'm sure someone from the church mail ordered them but my family didn't have money for such luxuries when I was little.
The memory of those oranges is my touchstone to how precious things we now take for granted truly are. Any time I am tempted to be wasteful or grumpy about not having peanut M&Ms in the house, I think back to the ecstasy of each delicious slice and how I felt king for a day when eating my annual orange jewel.
This tradeoff is why I have a longstanding fascination with and respect for the Amish. They seem to be the only population on earth capable of seriously prioritizing meaning over convenience at scale. Even more impressive is that they can take on new technology for a while, assess whether it's really making life better or just more convenient, and then actually reject or restrict it instead of shambling on into a misery feedback loop as if humans have no capcity to discern and set the parameters of their own enviornment. In some cases they use tractors for farmwork but with steel wheels specifically designed to be uncomfortable and unsuitable on roads so that they won't be used as a car.
It seems obvious to me that any future worth persisting in - any future that doesn't render dystopia fiction obsolete - will have to involve Amish-like populations intentionally valuing meaning over convenience and only permitting some selective combination of technology, and that tech having intentionally contrived limitations. The psychological experience of the medieval village without the dysentery.
The market for newly made "dumb" phones shows general consumerist westerners are selectively capable of this, though I'm not sure it can be sustained at scale without a religious glue.
Also, your chess parallel is exactly why I never persued the game beyond an amatuer level. Humans kept playing after computers surpassed us, but the game itself became irreversibly computerized. Winning is hollow when virtually everything you can do has already been codified and rank-ordered with official jargon. We are not calibrated for such a disenchanted world.