[MD] Hive mind, more fully explicated

[David Thomas]

John,
 
> I love Garrison.  I'm reading his latest novel again, "Love Me" - about a
> writer's relationship with his wife, and New York City.  A competitive love
> triangle.
> 
I just finish "Liberty" centered around a 4th of July parade that is the
last one to be overseen by a 60 year old Lake Wobegon mechanic.
I grew up close friends with a large Norwegian family. His cultural take on
their peculiarities is spot on and I think sheds light on RMP too.
> 
> And how do parents respond?  Plop 'em in School and in front of the tv.

Again this is a social myth. Do some parents do this? Sure. Just like some
parents are single, do crack, and sell themselves to buy it. But conflating
some to most is buying into a cultural myth that is just not true in my
experience. Most parents are as responsible and want the best for the
children as you and I do. And if there is a problem it is not some outside
cultural force such and TV or the Internet that is damaging that effort. It
is poor behavior and parenting of individual parents. And that poor behavior
is just as likely to be in a penthouse as it is in a ghetto.

>Thus IF there is an intellectual pattern,
> trying to take control of the future culture, all it has to do is grasp the
> reins of these two institutions.

I capitalized the operative word IF. As long as cultures runs in parallel
this if remains just that.
> 
> 
>> Press the reset button. Blast everyone back
>> to the stone age and start over. Sure your kids might not make it through
>> but anything is better than all devouring HIVE-MIND. Sounds like a remake
>> of the 1938 film "Reefer Madness."
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness
>> 
> I don't quite get the logical connection, but it's been a while since I saw
> reefer madness.
> 
The logical connection is that they are both hysterical myths. Both in the
"laughing out loud" and the "quick get the men and the white suits" sense.
I  think your right in that "community" integral to the problem. But it is
not because some outside source is going to take over and control all of
them. But rather that it is darn near impossible to establish and maintain
one in a meaningful way. In this country both the ease and desire for
mobility both economically and culturally make the whole country like one
big national park campground on the Fourth of July. A quick picnic with a
thrown together group of family and friends and move on down the road
tomorrow.

Here's the reverse take on the hive-mind. One that I think that is more
closely corresponds to reality and is the real source of angst.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8

The comments on the clip are just as enlightening as the clip.

RMP touches on this in his comments on NYC. No single individual in the
whole city has a clue how it works. Or in other than a very general way who
does what. This is specialization to a degree that has never been before.
It is both the power that got the human race where it is now and is also
scary because it makes everyone dependant on a long chain of other people
they have no relationship with, other than economic.

My guess is that you, like I, consider yourself a "do it yourselfer" in the
sense that if something needs to be fixed or built on your piece of dirt you
can pretty much do it. But this is a myth. Take everything out of our shops
made by others and we would be darn near helpless. Imagine being given two
piles of stuff. One all the individual pieces and parts of a disassembled
chainsaw. In the second all the raw materials, like iron ore etc, to
necessary to build the tools to assemble the chainsaw. Nothing else, Would
we ever get it done before we died? I doubt it. Even though we know what a
screwdriver, wrench, hammer etc are, we do not have the skills to build them
from scratch from basic raw materials. And even if we did we could not do it
alone. Making steel from iron ore requires the cooperation of many people
with specialized skill sets working together. That is what I think is the
source of uneasiness in everyone down deep. Dependency on primarily economic
relationships with strangers can tend to isolate one from community
particularly in tough economic times.

Dave