I like the notion of egregores, which model human dyanmics as organisms, in a loosely useful sense. Superorganisms are not tightly couple in the way real organisms are, at least AFAICT. But if something is going to survive and proper in the noisy medium of humanity, it needs strategies to replicate, adapt and regulate, just like a real organism. Sometimes this way of thinkgin sounds insight-ey.
See also
Egregores
Sarah Perry, in Weaponized Sacredness, almost describes this as a control problem, when she discusses Egregores:
A smart [egregore] would keep its component humans in the zone of maximum productivity, not demanding too much from them, nor allowing them to slack off (producing nothing for the glory and amusement of the egregore and anyway perhaps feeling bored and useless).
I like this metaphor, as it inspires us to think about what the feedback systems that are in place are configured to do.
Status
Kevin Simler in Minimum Viable Superorganism, casts the problem of cooperation outside the family unit as built upon status.
Culture wars
See culture wars.
Incoming
- Segmentation faults: how machine learning trains us to appear insane to one another.
- Amplified Tribalism - Not Boring by Packy McCormick
- Jeff Maurer, The Great Dumbening
- Irrational Institutions #2 - Infovores Newsletter File under filter bubbles, reality bubbles, subculture dynamics.
- David Gasca, The Secret of our Success (as humans)
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