I’m confused, and feel somewhat strawmanned by the summary “let’s try it and see what this button does.”
That wasn’t a summary of your position, that was a straw counterpoint for you to kick :-)
high-commitment, high-structure environments have a long, long history of being actually productive
Well… it’s complicated. Such environments are good for producing tools for a purpose. Cogs in a machine, maybe, or mass-produced minds from the same mold, or even cannon fodder if you’re unlucky—note that the military is the prototypical “high-commitment, high-structure” institution.
Having tools is certainly productive from the point of the view of the purpose. And it is true that some (maybe many) people feel that being a tool gives you a purposeful life, better than being pointlessly adrift. But, as I said, it’s complicated :-/
it’s more about the structure than the authoritarianism specifically
Structure needs to be enforced—otherwise everyone could easily set up the needed amount of structure in their life themselves. The point of the exercise is, basically, “I will organize your life for you” and that doesn’t work in the no-stick all-carrot setups.
I guess the concept I worry about is responsibility: if you will organize my life for me, you become responsible for it while my responsibility diminishes.
I am, in fact, smarter than a lot of them
That’s a good thing to be, but not necessarily to believe in :-D
In any case, I’m not saying you should do what the literature says, I’m saying you should know what the literature says, and not on the basis of hearsay either.
The price for the experiment is largely distributed across its members
Yes. The price (I’m mostly speaking about things other than money) is uncertain, in statistical terms it’s a random variable with a particular distribution. The question is how far the tail stretches: how bad is the worst-case scenario?
I think the point of the exercise is less “I will organize your life for you,” and more “we will reduce our ability to hide from one another, and therefore all be more likely to conform to our shared sense of that-which-is-endorsed.” The “I will organize” part is more “I will get us all together and turn on some of the relevant and hopefully-appropriate spotlights, and then moderate the discussion about which spotlights should turn back off.”
I have hopes that we can see the worst-case scenarios coming in time to avert them or eject, and that therefore the effective worst-case scenario is basically something like “I had a rough six months and have to find another room to rent again.”
Strong agreement with basically everything you say above.
That wasn’t a summary of your position, that was a straw counterpoint for you to kick :-)
Well… it’s complicated. Such environments are good for producing tools for a purpose. Cogs in a machine, maybe, or mass-produced minds from the same mold, or even cannon fodder if you’re unlucky—note that the military is the prototypical “high-commitment, high-structure” institution.
Having tools is certainly productive from the point of the view of the purpose. And it is true that some (maybe many) people feel that being a tool gives you a purposeful life, better than being pointlessly adrift. But, as I said, it’s complicated :-/
Structure needs to be enforced—otherwise everyone could easily set up the needed amount of structure in their life themselves. The point of the exercise is, basically, “I will organize your life for you” and that doesn’t work in the no-stick all-carrot setups.
I guess the concept I worry about is responsibility: if you will organize my life for me, you become responsible for it while my responsibility diminishes.
That’s a good thing to be, but not necessarily to believe in :-D
In any case, I’m not saying you should do what the literature says, I’m saying you should know what the literature says, and not on the basis of hearsay either.
Yes. The price (I’m mostly speaking about things other than money) is uncertain, in statistical terms it’s a random variable with a particular distribution. The question is how far the tail stretches: how bad is the worst-case scenario?
Ah, gotcha. Thanks. =)
I think the point of the exercise is less “I will organize your life for you,” and more “we will reduce our ability to hide from one another, and therefore all be more likely to conform to our shared sense of that-which-is-endorsed.” The “I will organize” part is more “I will get us all together and turn on some of the relevant and hopefully-appropriate spotlights, and then moderate the discussion about which spotlights should turn back off.”
I have hopes that we can see the worst-case scenarios coming in time to avert them or eject, and that therefore the effective worst-case scenario is basically something like “I had a rough six months and have to find another room to rent again.”
Strong agreement with basically everything you say above.