Comments on: Conservatives Don’t Understand Social Technology

By: Bjørn Vosskriger

Bjørn Vosskriger — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 00:55:06 +0000

Last week I was on a personal call and had to step into an elevator. I asked my friend to “hold on.” Put the phone on mute and stepped into the elevator, so that I wouldn’t be talking IN an elevator. Sure enough go to floors and someone enters the elevator blabbing on their cellphone. This was an office building in midtown, not a college dorm. I was taken aback, but that’s life these days.

Should I have told the person to can it or would THAT have been an even greater social transgression?

Vosskriger

By: This Week in Reaction | The Reactivity Place

This Week in Reaction | The Reactivity Place — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 04:00:29 +0000

[…] Conservatives Don’t Understand Social Technology […]

By: Bryce Laliberte

Bryce Laliberte — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 00:23:17 +0000

My exposition of social technology on my personal blog here: http://anarchopapist.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/social-technology-and-the-ethics-of-social-engineering/

Nyan Sandwich, I believe, coined the term: http://nyansandwich.info/collapse.html

By: Nick B. Steves

Nick B. Steves — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 21:49:07 +0000

If both parents require an expensive wedding, then you say, “Fuck you, Parents, we’re goin to the JP”. I’ve encouraged my children to do just this. In extremis, the Catholic church (and natural law) recognizes the possibility of impromtu marriage between only two partners. So yeah, there’s historical examples.

By: Nick B. Steves

Nick B. Steves — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 21:46:49 +0000

“No practical benefit” indeed. But huge practical harm. I’ve never associate that with a “wash”, which to me implies net zero. Perhaps this is a regional nuance.

By: Mark Boris

Mark Boris — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 21:39:16 +0000

Social technology is a new concept to me. Could I get some examples of what is and what is not social technology? I’m trying to understand the applications of this framework.

By: Hadley Bennett

Hadley Bennett — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 21:01:03 +0000

Because there may be countervailing forces at work. Suppose both sets of parents require an expensive wedding, and it’s not feasible to reject that proposal. Should we then put off marriage for a couple years while they burn, or should we sanctify a very special kind of ritualized cohabitation? I already said that this example was theoretical and not to be transplanted to US soil at the moment on an aggregate level, but it’s certainly not as crazy as you think, and it probably wouldn’t be hard to find historical examples.

By: Hadley Bennett

Hadley Bennett — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 20:54:41 +0000

The theological complementarianism preached from the pulpit these days is thoroughly blue-pill. The rest of the items (unrelated to complementarianism) are a wash, insofar as they are prohibitive to marriage. And they are. By ‘a wash’ I mean yielding no practical benefit. I could be firmer, but it works.

By: Nick B. Steves

Nick B. Steves — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 16:07:19 +0000

Radio demagogues aren’t enough, and wailing about the future of the country isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to take a step back, look at the foundations, and play the thinker.

I fully agree with that, but I’ve found that the deepest thought of all leads to the conclusion that I, not social conditions, must change first.

By: Nick B. Steves

Nick B. Steves — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 16:05:17 +0000

In that case, the social technology to employ would be the creation of rituals and the imbuing of significance–a mini-ceremony, as it were, with appropriate vows exchanged–for the express purpose of marriage soon to come.

Bennett, have you gone of your meds?!! If people are going to exchange vows in the promise to marry soon and then live together why not, ya know, just get married? What on earth would such a bit of "social technology" be for? I think this is barking up almost precisely the wrong tree. The social technology we need is: "Sex is for babies and so (coincidentally) is marriage"; "going to the JP is no dishonor"; and "home is wherever you are, my love".