Nick -
Merle,
I am sure we CAN'T figure it out without your help as a "emergentist".
The damage done by discrimination is a great example of non-zero-sum
losses. The problem is similar to the problem of inequality of
opportunity generally. The attractor is for the children of
better-off people to be better-off and for better-off children to
become better-off adults and have better-off children. As an example
I give you the Wood-Gormely [elementary] school here in Santa Fe,
which has a richer educational program because the parents throw
resources and time at it. And, I assume, simply because it has an
aura of a place where Parents give a damn. Thus, despite being a
Public School, it becomes by virtue of these investments of time and
resources and energy, a "better" public school. To deprive all
parents of the possibility of investing in the school their kid goes
to is to deprive all schools of something essential; but the
possibility of such investment leads inevitably to the genealogical
flow of social benefits. Which is why we have to revive the notion of
social Democracy in this poor sad country of ours.
FRIAMMERS could be crucial to such a discussion, if only by virtue of
having the conceptual tool of the "attractor" at our disposal. In
complexity terms, what is it that social democracies do? Is it basin
filling?
And "preferential attachment" and "canalization" and "coevolution on
fitness landscapes", et cetera...
I was impressed that the original author in question, Astra Taylor even
*referenced* complexity science topics. I'm not of the belief that
sprinkling complexity science terms onto a problem will magically remove
it's stains, BUT I do believe that many real-world, everyday challenges
in the world *can be* and often *must be* modeled as the non-linear
systems that they are, rather than fitting them to a simple linear
system, then drawing totally undermotivated and usually bogus
conclusions based on those models.
When usually we hear "the Rich get Richer", it rings our bell of
unfairness and abuse of power rather than being accepted as a truism
about positive feedback (even in linear systems) and preferential
attachment and canalization...
While the rhetoric of equality politics may have been critical to break
over from the old cultural hegemony into a new basin of attraction, I
don't think that the challenge remains making the point that "power
corrupts" over and over again, but rather seeking a dynamic which has
the properties we (think that?) we desire. "Be careful what you wish
for" being an entirely other question, I fear.
Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron>" is a cautionary tale
of one ultimate consequence of linear, brute force attempts at achieving
"equality".
"You Don't Always Get What You Want" - Stones
- Steve
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