Molding the Future 0
Writing at Bloomberg, Nathan P. Myhrvold suggests that the wrong metaphors are often used to describe social dynamics. He argues this is why bad ideas don’t die and why persons hold on to falsities.
He argues that society is less like an organism (think Hobbes’s Leviathan) and more like a slime mold.
Like the individual mold cells in a slime colony, most people mainly pursue their self-interest, influenced only partially by a concern for the common good. And our individual agendas often conflict. You can’t balance the federal budget, for example, without goring somebody’s ox. Do we raise taxes, cut spending, eliminate subsidies? Every option is resisted by some people.
What’s more, society as a whole isn’t rational. In politics, religion and other areas of culture, people disagree on the worth of competing ideas. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that can determine in a robust way which ideas match the real world, and which ones can be ruled out. So conflicting ideologies persist indefinitely.
Got a point. Worth a read.
