Fraud here, fraud there
Evolution News cites a new study of "extinctions" that reveals a sneaky cross-pollination by a dangerous concept.

Creative Destruction, one of the most lethal frauds of the Tech Monsters, has contaminated biological thinking:

Creative destruction is central to classic concepts of evolution. It seems clear that there are periods in which many species suddenly disappear, and many new species suddenly appear. However, radiations of a comparable scale to the mass extinctions, which this study, therefore, calls the mass radiations, have received far less analysis than extinction events. This study compared the impacts of both extinction and radiation across the period for which fossils are available, the so-called Phanerozoic Eon.

The new study suggests creative destruction isn't a good description of how species originated or went extinct during the Phanerozoic, and suggests that many of the most remarkable periods of evolutionary radiation occurred when life entered new evolutionary and ecological arenas, such as during the Cambrian explosion of animal diversity and the Carboniferous expansion of forest biomes.

In other words, this study found that the concept doesn't work in Nature.

It doesn't work in human civilization either.

Creative Destruction and Innovative Disruption are parallel frauds.

When a skill is destroyed, it's not replaced by anything.

The older examples commonly used to fraudulently justify CD are not "extinction followed by radiation". They are not DESTRUCTION of the old skill. They are more like "entering new arenas".

I've discussed the Buggy Whip meme before. When horseless carriages replaced horsey carriages, the skills and factories were reshaped into a new form. Ironworkers had been forging horseshoes and axles and frames for a long time. They gave up the horseshoes and expanded the other skills. Coachbuilders continued doing the same work at first, GRADUALLY shifting to steel panels over wood studs, then GRADUALLY shifting to steel panels over steel studs.

The noblest example of an intentional skill morph is Chappe to Foy. France established a complete national network of mechanical semaphores in 1793. Electrical telegraphs weren't really competitive until the 1840s. When the changeover was needed, the French government didn't go to Morse; they designed a new system that reused the sensory and muscle memory of the semaphore operators. Nobody had to be fired for obsolete skills.

= = = = =

The modern Creative Destruction can't be justified by the inappropriate older examples because it doesn't reuse skills at all.

When the ENTIRE STEEL INDUSTRY is killed and transferred to China, the steelmakers have NO PURPOSE.

When the ENTIRE TEXTILE INDUSTRY is killed and transferred to China, the weavers and loom operators and loom maintainers have NO PURPOSE.

When typewriters were killed and executives were told to do their own typing on computers, the secretaries were left with NO PURPOSE, and the executives now have to spend time on a task that isn't part of their proper job.

In some of these cases the destroyed skill is transferred to another country, which is good for the other country but deadly for the destroyed country. In other cases the skills are transferred to people who aren't very good at the skill and should be spending time and energy on their own work.

LIFE IS PURPOSE. TECH IS DEATH.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 3:53 PM