The house of representatives is arguably a technology (or something like that. A shared machine?). Technologies are a special case. We’ve got big groups of people actively striving to improve them.
The casual, half-neglected “everything else” is the norm. Tragedy of the commons and progressively intensified exploitation of that commons is the norm.
Unless it is specifically protected and fostered it gets chewed to bits. The only thing that really protects it is keeping it out of reach (through lack of communication, transportation or whatever)
I don’t think it’s often useful to react to contrary evidence as special case exceptions.
The “tragedy of the commons” is a real thing, but it’s also literally what “the cathedral and the bazar” is about. I would argue that the awareness and intentional action made based on either side of this mode is why technology seems to behave differently from other areas of human society.
Generalizing from the specific, I think it’s more helpful to say “things tend to change randomly over time, and people can be resistant to sudden change which is not obviously better.”
Since random change is more likely to be a change for the worse than a change for the better, societies will have a tendency to slowly become worse as time goes on. But the worse something gets the easier it is for people to discard it, and since intentional changes for the better are so often deliberate they also are often improvements to the best of what came before.
Enshittification occurs more as a deliberate act to increase revenue or decrease cost, which is a whole different ball game.
But we’re always trying to increase revenue and decrease cost. That’s biological. It’s a constant.
You may have this habit, but it’s hardly universal to our species. My biology tells me to value the stability of home life and the predictability of patterns; any increase in revenue or reduction in costs is from learned habits or intentional action.
I completely agree about personal discipline being a good bulwark against accidental change for the worse, though.
The house of representatives is arguably a technology (or something like that. A shared machine?). Technologies are a special case. We’ve got big groups of people actively striving to improve them.
The casual, half-neglected “everything else” is the norm. Tragedy of the commons and progressively intensified exploitation of that commons is the norm.
Unless it is specifically protected and fostered it gets chewed to bits. The only thing that really protects it is keeping it out of reach (through lack of communication, transportation or whatever)
I don’t think it’s often useful to react to contrary evidence as special case exceptions.
The “tragedy of the commons” is a real thing, but it’s also literally what “the cathedral and the bazar” is about. I would argue that the awareness and intentional action made based on either side of this mode is why technology seems to behave differently from other areas of human society.
Generalizing from the specific, I think it’s more helpful to say “things tend to change randomly over time, and people can be resistant to sudden change which is not obviously better.”
Since random change is more likely to be a change for the worse than a change for the better, societies will have a tendency to slowly become worse as time goes on. But the worse something gets the easier it is for people to discard it, and since intentional changes for the better are so often deliberate they also are often improvements to the best of what came before.
Enshittification occurs more as a deliberate act to increase revenue or decrease cost, which is a whole different ball game.
But we’re always trying to increase revenue and decrease cost. That’s biological. It’s a constant.
So enshittification and change for the worse look alike. So maybe conflate them
So the only thing free from this constant worsening is that which we give special attention to improving. (Ex : technology)
(It’s a strong argument for personal discipline. Chaos is the norm. Insanity is the norm. Rot is the norm. Etc)
You may have this habit, but it’s hardly universal to our species. My biology tells me to value the stability of home life and the predictability of patterns; any increase in revenue or reduction in costs is from learned habits or intentional action.
I completely agree about personal discipline being a good bulwark against accidental change for the worse, though.