Monday, March 21, 2016
Pick one, Pomeroy
Pomeroy at RCS worries about the rapid extinction of aboriginal and obscure languages. English is rolling over everything else. As people in obscure places feel the need to Go Global, they are obliged to Go English. There's no advantage in passing on the deep culture and deep metaphors of an insular language.
Needless to say, Pomeroy ALSO worries about XENOPHOBIC BUFFOON TRUMP and his parallels in EU. This column doesn't explicitly mention Trump, but it pictures him above a paragraph about Hitler and Stalin. Conclusion obvious.
Can't have both. Pick one.
If you want REAL DIVERSITY in human types and human cultures, you need WALLS. You need STRICT CONTROLS ON TRADE AND IMMIGRATION. As Shamir pointed out, immigration hurts both ends of the road. The destination country gets workers who undercut the natives, and criminals who steal from the natives. The donor country is better off without the criminal types, but it's damaged by losing dynamic and intelligent workers. (ie Brain Drain)
This is a corollary of Graybill's Law. Requoting:
The people of Free-Trade countries are therefore driven into the few occupations which are left, by reason of the destruction of their formerly more varied pursuits. Hence those diversified talents with which men are endowed are not developed but remain latent and unused, an incalculable detriment to the prosperity of their respective countries.
When you move labor around, either as laborers or as offshored manufacturing, you destroy the REAL DIVERSITY of both ends.
= = = = =
Preserving cultures and skills also requires STABILITY and SAVING. If you can't count on the laws and culture to remain constant, you aren't going to bother starting a business or a marriage. If you can't rely on a way to store value or values, you can't invest in a business or a marriage.
Fast-moving stock markets benefit only the insiders who are driving the movement. Goldman wins, everyone else loses.
Fast-moving cultures benefit only the insiders who are driving the movement. Tim Cook wins, everyone else loses.
A desire for borders and stability is NOT NOSTALGIA. It's simply SURVIVAL.
We're blowing up all of those requirements. We're fucked.
Labels: defensible spaces, Make or break, skill-estate
¶ 2:49 AM
