On 06/29/2015 10:43 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Discovery of better models can invalidate consensus and orthodoxy. This leads to vested interests being threatened and disruption. A typical response to this is to isolate the disrupter. Tying them to stake and burning them is one way. Another way is to buy up all of the intellectual property in the vicinity and get lawyers busy. It's kind of all the same thing. The tactics change depending on social constraints, the relative size of the minority to majority, and governance systems already in place. "Dark" is what the majority calls the minority. It serves their purposes.
What amazes me is how quickly the transition can be made, indicating something like a neutral network. Thanks for eyeballing "disruptive technologies", because they are an excellent example. Most of the (usually "libertarian") technologists who think we'll _invent_ our way out of things like overpopulation or climate change tend play this game very well. They rely on the 2 basic assumptions that: 1) the unforeseen attractor(s) will be large enough to be promoted from minority to majority and 2) the path to (or emergence of) the unforeseen attractor(s) will be fat (or quick, respectively). For a technology to actually be "disruptive", it has to flip the space relatively quickly. So, it's less about taking the road less traveled and more about strategies for becoming preadapted to the landscape that will soon emerge. I'd regard these types, the ones that want to anticipate the wave just early enough to _ride_ it, as Right-Hand Path magicians. The LHP magicians tend to stay in the minority, perhaps even on purpose. We become skilled at staying in the shadows and as soon as something we do/enjoy shows signs of becoming popular, we change what we do/enjoy so as to avoid the stampede. Anyway, my point is basically that even the majority-vs-minority conception is in the domain of Light. To be Dark means appreciating the entire (occult) mechanism, but especially focusing on the rarely used pathways. -- ⇔ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
