Measuring 'Progress'

There's all kinds of waffling all the time about social and economic progress.

I think it's easier to just consider two likely factors, based on empirical observation. Societies and economies that are said to have progressed relative to others are those with a higher information flux density or energy flux density.

For those less enamoured of technical-sounding terms, 'flux density' is a measure of the rate at which something flows through a cross-sectional area. So a high information flux density implies that a lot of information is flowing through a specific cross-section. The more 'units' (how ever measured) of information or energy flow through an average cross-section of the society being evaluated, the more 'socioeconomically progressive' it can be said to be.

Whether this is a valid formulation or not is still debatable. However, it's an interesting place to start — my personal thesis that socioeconomic progress can be measured by information and/or energy flux density, or some combination thereof.

Why would such measures be valid?

Well, if information is being transferred from node to node (that is, meaning is successfully conveyed — a la communication theory — from one place to another), then teaching and learning, and other social tools, are implied. The higher the density, the more likely it is that it is for some purpose; it is unlikely that a lot of information is being routed from point A to point B for no reason at all (except, perhaps, for back-up and other 'modern' purposes). If large amounts of energy (of any kind) are being transferred from point A to point B, it is also unlikely that it is being used for no reason at all (except, perhaps, for aesthetic purposes such as decorative lighting).

Although there will certainly be exceptions, the chance of social complexity, diversity of thought, and diversity of purposeful action being present should increase with the increase in these flux densities. In order to make this more robust, I'd propose that successful 'flow' should be measured in terms of what was sent at the transmitting end and what was used at the recipient end. So if someone sends me an email and it is routed to my junk folder and deleted, that doesn't count, since no information transfer in a practical sense has occurred.

Let's see how it goes...

Water

Consider the molecules in a glass of water.

Randomly, some will diffuse upward, some downward. But this mobility is not equal; a molecule that reaches the top may escape into a more rarified state, escape the surly bonds of hydrogen bonding and be one with the upper air. Indeed, what holds most molecules of water back is other molecules of water.

Now consider this statement.

"The progress of the lowest 90% of the population is far lower than that of the highest 1% of the population."

There is nothing new under the sun. How can it be otherwise?

Well, yes, there are alternatives. If your glass of water is a glass of steam, then most of the molecules are in random motion and will soon escape the glass. Some will hit a glass wall and condense, having lost sufficient energy or been sufficiently attracted to the glass or other molecules of water. If your glass of water is a glass of ice, nobody goes anywhere.

But a glass of water is normally taken to be just that — a glass, with liquid water in it.

Woodpecker

It's probably true that some blogs are popular because of their narrow focus and deep examination of specific subjects. I must suppose that what I write is not attractive in that way.

One mode of writing I've seen a lot of, however, is the faintly elevated 'Oxbridge' form. Some of my family members write that way when provoked or being provocative. It is spiced with the kind of allusions that are meant for only those of the same crowd. This spice is in turn concealed by the assertion that anyone who's had a proper education, whether at such gleaming (oops, dreaming) spires or not, should appreciate such.

I don't know. To me it sometimes seems as if, having earnt their MAs or PhDs, such people are locked into a death struggle with the material, like two spent swimmers who do choke their art (haha). It has become too much of a defining influence.

At the same time, there is the tang of the arch and deliberately layered kind of irony and wit. This faint aromatic component is yet another in-crowd thing. It makes me itch, because it reminds me that I know enough to identify it, and thus must partake of some of the characteristics of that crowd.

Some days, it is like watching Wodehouse duke it out with Wilde, or Eastwood pull a gun on Torchwood under the malign influence of Wildwood. Ach, one must not take such things too seriously.

Sociological Pseudo-Arguments

Somewhere out there are liberals who enjoy shoving sociological pseudo-arguments in your face. Be prepared to face them the right way; probably bass-ackwards, running like hell is after you (not running like hell, that would mean you don't get away from it — you should run faster).

The first of these arguments is: X is rich — wealth insulates, so you shouldn't feel sorry for X and yeah you can make fun of them even if they're dying of some horrible disease.

The second of these arguments is: X is from a majority — (the oppressors, oppressor class etc) — so X cannot empathize with Y who is from a minority (the oppressed) and yeah you can make fun of them because numbers insulate.

The third of these arguments is: X is from a minority — but it's a worse-treated minority than Y's minority — so whatever you say, Y has it better and you can let X make fun of Y.

The fourth of these arguments is: you have never walked even one yard (or metre) in X's shoes, so how can you possibly understand X's problems?

The fifth of these arguments is: X has a condition that is perfectly normal in the animal kingdom, but is socially ostracized for insufficient reasons, so society should treat X at least like an animal and not make fun of this condition — which is, after all, within the realm of nature.

The sixth of these arguments is: you are MALE, how can you ever empathize with any X when your only claim to X-empathy is that you had a mother?

There are many more such spurious arguments which are actually ad hominem attacks on your ability to understand, empathize, walk a mile in someone else's shoes, or otherwise translocate your psyche. Run from them. But if you must stand and fight, at least point out what they are, and die a martyr in the full knowledge of what you fought.

Gangsterism in Schools

I spent some time thinking about this topic recently. A lot of sociologists and psychologists give the standard reason that gangs and tribes are part of normal human behaviour, so it's all a question of how these groups are formed and to what ends they act. But it seems to me that, if schools are indeed agents of socialisation, they should be determining the way gangs behave.

What troubles me more is the equivalent of white-collar gangs. Intellectual gangs. Debater gangs. Children-of-privilege gangs. Scholarship-leads-to-power gangs. This kind of gangsterism is what drives the big crimes, the ones that aren't really crimes and are condoned by society. There are dark imperatives building in that area between black and white, where you can't tell which are the men in either colour.

Get your scholarship. Get an advanced degree. Become a boss. Treat people like crap and eliminate your rivals using everything they taught you at the local civil service training centre, and some things they didn't dare teach you. At any sign that an employee is unhappy, that's disloyalty, for why would he be unhappy with your regime? After all, you have the God-given wisdom to know what's best for him. Best get rid of him then, no need to find out why he is unhappy because that would surely be his lack of wisdom, not yours.

The mafia of the new academic world are not sub-educated grunts, but over-educated villains. And like the stereotypical Bond villain, they have no sense of humour but make you feel like laughing. Of course, if you do, you will suffer drastic consequences.

Plagiarism

The funny thing about uncritical perception is that it leads to a kind of groupthink on the part of whole groups of students. If you have ten students, that's not so bad; if you have 400, that's going to be a large clump; and if you have 400 elite students (or socioculturally elite in a meritocratic plutocracy or plutocratic meritocracy) then that is a large clump with a huge potential societal impact.

There are several such novitiates in Atlantis. They practise the practice of reflection — that is, they reflect because they are told to do so, and most of the time, when they are illuminated, they just reflect the illumination and feel good about it.

The problem with this light-scattering effect is that it eventually looks a lot like plagiarism when it isn't really so. This is because the entire armamentarium of these novitiates has become standardised. They all wear the same kind of armour, use the same kinds of weapons, follow the same sort of drills. Then they customise these things for their own personal ambition and comfort, but as in most cases, customisation amounts to a 5% difference (or less) between morphologies.

My next paper will therefore be one on the morphology of mass customisation. It is a lot like that ubiquitous computer game, Spore.

Imperial Overstretch

No, this has nothing to do with eating too much, although I must say that I've had a bit of that over the weekend just past. Actually, it's all about the old hypothesis that, like Rome and Britain, the maintenance of empire can lead to the collapse of commitment.

This can be seen in any sufficiently large organisation. The bread and circuses are still abundant, long after the driving force has turned into some sort of zombified parody of the original. In fact, to this day the memories of Rome and of Britain are dear to some people. We still have the mottos of elite schools in Latin, with British heraldry.

Why is this so? I think that we all fall in love with the greatest pomp in the direst circumstances. When it is gone, we remember the good times, but not the bad. And when overstretch has turned into decay, like the collapse of a soufflé, we still dream of an imperial zenith that perhaps never really was.