Where do you get that ancient elites had lower fertility. Polygamy is specifically so that elites could have more babies. And in fact, elite women had better access to wetnurses, so they could return to fertilty sooner. And had better nutrition. Low fertility being an elite thing is a modern notion, I think. You're right about infanticide being a way to reduce number of babies.
Synchronization is also quite common in religions, where fertility is generally higher than the general population. But then religion is now also seen as lower status, especially religions of the sort that promote fertility.
Interesting musing on Synchronization and acting in tandem with others.
Are you familiar with the idea of Collective Effervescence?
"According to Durkheim, a community or society may at times come together and simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action", pulled straight from the annals of Wikipedia(probably not the best source but eh we'll live another day)
Anyways, doing things in sync reminds me of this idea. Sorta like that weird feeling when you're at a concert and everyone's shouting the lyrics or the intensity experienced in a gospel church. This feeling of Collective Effervescence promotes a sense of awe, fraternity, celebration, etc. I think the big part there is awe. Makes you feel like there's something more. Something GREATER than you.
I feel like every conversation reverts back to Nietzsche and God is Dead - but perhaps true. The lack of plausible meaning with the "death of God" still is a question that haunts humanity.
Despite industrialization and consolidation of human population in cities, we've never felt lonelier. The lack of collective effervescence, synchronized activity, and all that may be a piece in the puzzle.
Collective effervescence is another term I feel is touching on the same concepts that other terms like "collective unconscious", Strauss and Howe's "Generational Cycles", and "fin de siècle" mentality are all touching on - that there are factors that influence people culture-wide (though obviously not universally or equally), and prime peoples to subconsciously desire or be receptive to big changes and movements, be they wars or revolutions or other sorts of enantiodrome.
Really appreciate you bringing up other ideas Scott, will check them out!
Interesting thought on "collective effervescence" priming people to feel or act a certain way - almost like getting people riled up at a political rally or something
I agree that "fertility is falling because we all see ourselves as high class." See link to journal article on this at end of this comment. I agree that in societies that promise upwards mobility, people copy elities. In the modern world, people are striving to move upwards in social status. Elites were and are able to to that without the burden of childcare, since nannies were always available. I think this is what you are getting at. Elites could practice status-striving without worrying about the burden of children. For people with low or average income, raising chidren is a heevy financial burden, so to copy the upwards striving of elites, people must forego children. What I find unsupported in the literature is this comment: "Most ancient elites limited their fertility via infanticide or infant exposure." Just delete this statement. Elites had more chidren than anyone, especially when you throw in the ability of elite status to procure mating access. Y Chromosome studies of Genghis Khan's fertility. Reproductive fitness and all that. But: You can omit this claim, just say, as I said above: people want to copy elites and pursue high status, and paying for a caring for children competes with status striving in terms of time and money. Check out: https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2055/aop/article-10.1556-2055.2022.00028/article-10.1556-2055.2022.00028.xml
Synchronization means everybody is doing the same thing, nobody is unique. To have something unique to offer means to be specialized compared to other people, which is a valuable trait in a technological society. There's less synchronization because there's more specialization.
Sailors sang sea shanties to synchronize their muscular efforts pulling on ropes, a job that is now done with a mechanical winch. There's less need for synchronized muscle power, with everybody doing the same thing, when we have machines.
Would society be better off if people were more synchronized? To be creative, to be a critical thinker, to have something unique to offer - these are positive attributes, at odds with being synchronized. Large synchronized social movements, with nobody thinking or acting for themselves, are a social problem. Think Nazism. Society is less evil when people are willing and able to question and dissent.
This is a popular but I think deeply mistaken view.
Our asynchronisation is mostly in our leisure, not in our work. In our work we are deeply synced, in the tools and processes we use, the times we work, our behaviours and even our dress. And this is hugely productive. Effective specialisation requires high levels of synchronisation, with small amounts of highly-bounded asynchronization. E.g. If the radiography department isn't deeply synced with the oncology department, or each radiographer takes a radically different approach, you're going to have a bad time. A great radiographer isn't someone with unique, uncopiable artistry, it's someone who can devise a better approach then cause others to sync on it. And the greater the syncing (department, company, country, worldwide...), the greater your impact.
In fact, we are so keen to express asynchronisation that we pretend our work is far less synced than it really is (e.g. my company says it has no uniform, but we all dress within tight bounds and I'd face heavy pressure if I showed up in a 3-piece suit or a basketball jersey). We want to position ourselves as unique artists, in our private thoughts, our work product, our relationships, etc, when it's manifestly not true. As the saying goes, you're beautiful and unique - just like everyone else. Synchronisation does not mean nobody thinking or acting for themselves, or questioning - it simply means falling in where it makes sense. Frankly most of our asynchronisation is more like claiming you're a bold dissident because you drive on the wrong side of the road, than it is any actual disagreement. Society would be far better off with less showy contrarianism.
Moreover, we as individuals would be better off if we synchronized more. As Chesterton said, you need to be orthodox on most things, or you won't have time to preach your own heresy. By focusing your asynchronisation on tightly-defined areas where you have a real comparative advantage, you can outperform, rather than pretending you have something unique to offer in everything under the sun.
Well, there is plenty of synchronization at work still, but comparatively speaking there is much *less* synchronization than there used to be. It's not the case anymore that 90% of the population is serfs who all go out to thresh the fields, doing exactly the same job at exactly the same time.
Radiolographers are doing a different job from oncologists. They're "synced" in the sense that radiographers and oncologists have to communicate and be responsive to each other, but not in the sense that they are performing the same activity together. Even radiographers aren't synced with other radiographers in that sense; they are doing the same job according to the same standard, but not together at the same time.
Dress codes at work are more casual and varied than they used to be. Yes, you would get funny looks if you wore a sports jersey to work, but have you ever seen historical videos of crowds of people in 1920 Paris or 1910 Los Angeles? Every man among hundreds is wearing the same black suit.
Also, oncologists and radiographers are particularly repetitive jobs. Each patient or X-ray is fairly similar to the previous one. There are many jobs that are much less repetitive than that, that didn't use to exist. A computer programmer never writes the same function twice. An engineer never designs the same widget twice. A researcher never writes the same research paper twice. A marketer never uses the same ad campaign twice. A novelist never writes the same paragraph twice.
You used the example of a radiographer making some innovation and getting others to sync on it. I would make a distinction between synchronization for the sake of unity (a dance troupe, a dress code, an ISO standard) and "synchronization" because each individual is independently making a rational decision for themselves, which happen to be the same decision. The second is not really "synchronization" because it is from individual choices, not social order. If a researcher produces some innovation that spreads naturally because it just works better, then that's not really synchronization. It's only true synchronization if it's done for purposes of social unity, i.e. if a standards body says, "this is how everyone must do things now."
Also, even if a researcher does produce an innovation that becomes an official standard, the researcher - the most valuable person in this scenario - is not part of the synchronization he initiated. He's not executing the innovation, and after milking the topic with some more papers and talks, he will move on to researching something else, because that's a researcher's job.
No, there is much more synchronisation. Peasants had huge variations in the tools they used, the crops they planted, and so on. Agriculture was manual, piecemeal and varied - you can still see this in some developing countries, and it's why output varies so widely from plot to plot. And outside agriculture, the majority of products were artisanal items (shoes, clothes, furniture, etc) made to an idiosyncratic and variable standard. Now we have legions of call centre workers literally reading off a script, factory workers highly synced in a production line, and so on.
A programmer (hopefully!) never writes the same function twice, but he and his colleagues are synchronised on the language, coding standards, interface specification, test framework, process for pushing to prod, etc. He gets fired if he decides to do things his own way. Most likely the systems won't even allow him to bypass the process. Compare that to the way the humblest peasant would make clothes for her family, let alone an actual artisan. And despite being intensely synchronised compared to the past, programmers are intensely un-synchronised compared to a more typical modern worker (e.g. retail, food service, etc).
You seem to want to hold the past to a different standard than the present. No-one told medieval peasants when to thresh, or Parisian commuters what suit to wear, and they weren't acting for purposes of social unity. Choice vs social order is a spectrum, anyway. The real difference between then and now is that in 1920s Paris the individual commuters all wanted to fit in, and they succeeded, and now they all want to stand out, and they (necessarily) fail.
We would do better to embrace much more synchronisation. Look how McDonalds has made cheap, delicious food available worldwide by an intensely synchronised process. Every McDonald's fry-cook is doing the same thing in the same way at the same time in the same uniform to the same standards, in hundreds of countries worldwide. Look how synchronisation has raised output and productivity, and reduced variance, in agriculture, industry, services, management practices, etc. If developers were more standardised, they would be able to build more reliable software more quickly, and actually earn the title of Software Engineer. This synchronisation is why we have been able to make these processes more capital intensive, and can dream of making more people redundant in future.
Unfortunately, people think that following procedures is infra dig, and makes them seem more like a McDonalds fry-cook than a unique artist. No doubt this is Forager Ethics run amok. There has always been some of this undercurrent (see the rebellions against Taylorism), but we're wealthier now so we can afford more self-indulgence. This leads to doctors refusing to use checklists, teachers refusing to do Direct Instruction, and even claims that doing the same thing at the same time is fascism.
There may be more standardization within some occupations, but there's now a vast variety of occupations that did not exist for medieval serfs. It could be quantified this way: the chance that any two randomly selected workers from a geographic community are doing the same or a very similar thing at the same time, is now much lower, compared to medieval times. This is undeniable.
Medieval farming wasn't so heterogeneous. Between different kingdoms and climates, perhaps somewhat. But within one fiefdom all the serfs pretty much had the same tools and worked the fields together on communally-specified days, in between the church holidays, which they all observed.
McDonald's fry cooks are synchronized with each other, certainly. But what percentage of workers are McDonald's fry cooks? It's not 90%, it's not 1%. It's a fraction of 1%. Even if you count fry cooks in general (who are *not* so synchronized with each other), that's only about 0.3% of the population. McDonald's fry cooks may be synchronized *with each other*, but they're very much *de*synchronized from the rest of the population.
Fry cooks - like other front line jobs - aren't paid a lot. Why? Do you think it's just "Forager Ethics"? Or is it something to do with them not adding as much value?
Why don't you switch jobs from whatever your current one is, to a fry cook or assembly line worker? Those are the most regimented, synchronized jobs around. Would you be better off if you did?
Making the same decision as everyone else for the purpose of "wanting to fit in," like 1920s Paris men, is very much in the category of synchronization.
You obviously aren't responding to what I wrote so further discussion is pointless, but for the benefit of observers - I am not saying people should take the most regimented job. That wouldn't increase synchronisation at all. Instead, people should take the job they are best at, and try and do it in a highly regimented way, and standardise their colleagues' behaviour too. That will make you rich and society better off.
You made a bunch of points, most of which I did respond to.
Nowadays, if your job is capable of being highly regimented, it is at risk of being automated. Or at least, the highly regimented parts will be automated, leaving the human to do the things that can't be so clearly specified. Clerks, accountants, doctors, lawyers - nobody is entirely safe, because they're competing with machines. In part this is the reason McDonald's workers and assembly line workers are low paid: they're competing with machines and robots.
I think this really cuts to the heart of postmodernism: the rejection of large-scale sources of identity. The postmodernist, post-WWII cultural trend in the west has been toward greater individuality and rejection of mass movements that subsume the individual (communism/fascism). Perhaps the long cultural shadow of the Cold War and the post-60s countercultural memes of "think for yourself, don't be a cog in the machine, man!" contribute. I don't think it's coincidence that two of the most synched areas in modern western society, military and religious observance, are widely considered "conservative" cultural spheres.
At the same time, we do see the emergence of subtler forms of synch, if we allow for the concept of "asynchronous synch" without it being an oxymoron: the mass emulation via Tiktok trends and social media memes is grounded in synching oneself into implicitly understood forms and symbols.
I think a more positive reading would see this as a sign of human capital and movement up Maslow's hierarchy of needs toward individual self-actualization. As Brian Moore comments, synchronized behaviors often compensate for individual weakness; perhaps individuals are less weak in the ways that synchronization used to ameliorate. Synchronization could be seen as a form of "training" for outmoded means of labor productivity: now that we no longer need to coordinate movements to bring in the harvest, raise barns, row galleys or march in lockstep, there is no practical outlet for synchronization.
I think the story of why synch is low (individual) status is just mechanical: yes, it is advantageous for a group, but only because it makes up for individual (low-status) weakness. The tiger hunting humans is obviously higher status than the individual humans, who must work together to even have a chance. Definitely early humans would have assigned large, powerful predators a higher place in whatever religious/cultural hierarchy they had.
But that's individual status - societies do indeed gain status collectively from demonstrating that their members can act in synch - think armies marching by. And some of that devolves to the individuals in that society - "look how unified our citizens are!", but really only helps when societies struggle vs each other. At the social event, or restaurant, or sidewalk, we're talking individual (within-society) status.
Synchronization is a way for humans to fit into groups and achieve social status. In Jane Austen's era, elaborate group dancing was a signal of fitness and also membership in the higher social classes. In the modern era the forms of synchronization have changed but it is still everywhere in society: Speech patterns (accents, idioms, jargon), in-jokes, memes, fashion, musical taste, hobbies, conspiracy theories, political views, etc. I don't see any evidence that people are doing less of this today. In the political realm for example there is a lot more in-group/out-group signaling than there was 30 years ago.
Yes of course there's a lot of correlation between humans in their behavior. But direct synching is a particular kind of correlatoin that we do less now.
Radically different people are increasingly (or more likely witnessed) to be reacting to competitive social forces in similar ways. For instance, what’s most obviously happening on what we used to call the “Left” is not at all unlike what’s we’ve most dramatically seen from the “Right” despite their continued, obviously visible, ideological, musical, clothing, or cultural differences. These themes have become more alike than different. It’s not surprising that superficial conflicting values and identity (such as social status, achievement, and charity) are causing groups to react in strategically confusing but fully understandable ways. For example, It’s no more surprising to me to see that the most “selflessly woke” bohemians still need to inhabit the most competitive schools, competing for the most competitive jobs, in the most desirable cities - no more confusing than it is to hear the most “god-fearing, liberty-loving, law-abiding” provincials celebrate 80s-style corporatism, political lawlessness, unabashed book bans, speech-curtailing, religious and cultural identitarianism, and a slew of generally backward, illiberal policy agenda. While the right seems to almost celebrate their own weakness now “before god and country” (common themes in country music) while the left curate, cherish, camouflage, and distain the disgust within their own identity before a growing, more self-aware mob of social condemnation and “forever judgement”. Anyone who thinks ephemeral wokeness is reserved for the sheepish manipulation on the Left has never spent much time truly watching, listening, to the opportunists who lead the Right.
'Back when peasants and other lower class workers were highly synchronized, their more elite superiors were less synchronized'
Jane Austen novels describe a lot of rich people engaged in highly synchronized dances. Thomas Hardy (writing a bit later) described peasant dances in terms that perhaps suggest they were a bit more free form.
I'm wondering if it isn't the fact that the peasants gained more cultural significance as their descendant (the working class) became richer that caused their more free form dancing styles to become more generally adopted.
Dancing in general plays an important role in fitness signaling and courtship, in that a good dancer needs physical and mental talents that are difficult to fake. The elaborate dances of the Jane Austen novels involved mixing of partners, which amounted to a form of speed dating when social norms kept men and women largely separated. Now that these social norms have relaxed, the need for these structured forms of dance have given way to more individualized styles.
Yes, and there’s also high fashion and other elite pursuits--definitely lots of imitation going on in ‘higher’ classes, way beyond the ‘peasants’ (whatever is meant by that term in the way it’s being used by the author).
he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes. A heavy, lowering storm-cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to their coats and put them on; others—just like Levin himself—merely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the pleasant coolness of it.
Another row, and yet another row, followed—long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.
On finishing yet another row he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next, but Tit stopped, and going up to the old man said something in a low voice to him. They both looked at the sun. 'What are they talking about, and why doesn't he go back?' thought Levin, not guessing that the peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping, and it was time for their lunch.
I think of this as a loss of valuing normalcy. Everyone needs to have a degree or earn a lot of money or be important. If you're not special you're a failure.
Also the songs of sailors - who coordinated work and kept spirits up by singing shanties.
Where do you get that ancient elites had lower fertility. Polygamy is specifically so that elites could have more babies. And in fact, elite women had better access to wetnurses, so they could return to fertilty sooner. And had better nutrition. Low fertility being an elite thing is a modern notion, I think. You're right about infanticide being a way to reduce number of babies.
"Compared to other animals, humans are uniquely able to synchronize our actions with each other."
Tangential, but this seems trivially false? One example: shoals of fish can synchronize their movements far better than most humans ever could.
But fish have very limited detail re their copying other fish. Humans can copy a lot more intricate detail.
Maybe! Unsure about how you are defining "intricate detail" here. Non-humans are also able to exhibit highly complex imitative behavior.
Either way, this is besides the main point of the article!
Synchronization is also quite common in religions, where fertility is generally higher than the general population. But then religion is now also seen as lower status, especially religions of the sort that promote fertility.
Interesting musing on Synchronization and acting in tandem with others.
Are you familiar with the idea of Collective Effervescence?
"According to Durkheim, a community or society may at times come together and simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action", pulled straight from the annals of Wikipedia(probably not the best source but eh we'll live another day)
Anyways, doing things in sync reminds me of this idea. Sorta like that weird feeling when you're at a concert and everyone's shouting the lyrics or the intensity experienced in a gospel church. This feeling of Collective Effervescence promotes a sense of awe, fraternity, celebration, etc. I think the big part there is awe. Makes you feel like there's something more. Something GREATER than you.
I feel like every conversation reverts back to Nietzsche and God is Dead - but perhaps true. The lack of plausible meaning with the "death of God" still is a question that haunts humanity.
Despite industrialization and consolidation of human population in cities, we've never felt lonelier. The lack of collective effervescence, synchronized activity, and all that may be a piece in the puzzle.
hmmm
Collective effervescence is another term I feel is touching on the same concepts that other terms like "collective unconscious", Strauss and Howe's "Generational Cycles", and "fin de siècle" mentality are all touching on - that there are factors that influence people culture-wide (though obviously not universally or equally), and prime peoples to subconsciously desire or be receptive to big changes and movements, be they wars or revolutions or other sorts of enantiodrome.
Really appreciate you bringing up other ideas Scott, will check them out!
Interesting thought on "collective effervescence" priming people to feel or act a certain way - almost like getting people riled up at a political rally or something
fascinating
I agree that "fertility is falling because we all see ourselves as high class." See link to journal article on this at end of this comment. I agree that in societies that promise upwards mobility, people copy elities. In the modern world, people are striving to move upwards in social status. Elites were and are able to to that without the burden of childcare, since nannies were always available. I think this is what you are getting at. Elites could practice status-striving without worrying about the burden of children. For people with low or average income, raising chidren is a heevy financial burden, so to copy the upwards striving of elites, people must forego children. What I find unsupported in the literature is this comment: "Most ancient elites limited their fertility via infanticide or infant exposure." Just delete this statement. Elites had more chidren than anyone, especially when you throw in the ability of elite status to procure mating access. Y Chromosome studies of Genghis Khan's fertility. Reproductive fitness and all that. But: You can omit this claim, just say, as I said above: people want to copy elites and pursue high status, and paying for a caring for children competes with status striving in terms of time and money. Check out: https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2055/aop/article-10.1556-2055.2022.00028/article-10.1556-2055.2022.00028.xml
Synchronization means everybody is doing the same thing, nobody is unique. To have something unique to offer means to be specialized compared to other people, which is a valuable trait in a technological society. There's less synchronization because there's more specialization.
Sailors sang sea shanties to synchronize their muscular efforts pulling on ropes, a job that is now done with a mechanical winch. There's less need for synchronized muscle power, with everybody doing the same thing, when we have machines.
Would society be better off if people were more synchronized? To be creative, to be a critical thinker, to have something unique to offer - these are positive attributes, at odds with being synchronized. Large synchronized social movements, with nobody thinking or acting for themselves, are a social problem. Think Nazism. Society is less evil when people are willing and able to question and dissent.
This is a popular but I think deeply mistaken view.
Our asynchronisation is mostly in our leisure, not in our work. In our work we are deeply synced, in the tools and processes we use, the times we work, our behaviours and even our dress. And this is hugely productive. Effective specialisation requires high levels of synchronisation, with small amounts of highly-bounded asynchronization. E.g. If the radiography department isn't deeply synced with the oncology department, or each radiographer takes a radically different approach, you're going to have a bad time. A great radiographer isn't someone with unique, uncopiable artistry, it's someone who can devise a better approach then cause others to sync on it. And the greater the syncing (department, company, country, worldwide...), the greater your impact.
In fact, we are so keen to express asynchronisation that we pretend our work is far less synced than it really is (e.g. my company says it has no uniform, but we all dress within tight bounds and I'd face heavy pressure if I showed up in a 3-piece suit or a basketball jersey). We want to position ourselves as unique artists, in our private thoughts, our work product, our relationships, etc, when it's manifestly not true. As the saying goes, you're beautiful and unique - just like everyone else. Synchronisation does not mean nobody thinking or acting for themselves, or questioning - it simply means falling in where it makes sense. Frankly most of our asynchronisation is more like claiming you're a bold dissident because you drive on the wrong side of the road, than it is any actual disagreement. Society would be far better off with less showy contrarianism.
Moreover, we as individuals would be better off if we synchronized more. As Chesterton said, you need to be orthodox on most things, or you won't have time to preach your own heresy. By focusing your asynchronisation on tightly-defined areas where you have a real comparative advantage, you can outperform, rather than pretending you have something unique to offer in everything under the sun.
Well, there is plenty of synchronization at work still, but comparatively speaking there is much *less* synchronization than there used to be. It's not the case anymore that 90% of the population is serfs who all go out to thresh the fields, doing exactly the same job at exactly the same time.
Radiolographers are doing a different job from oncologists. They're "synced" in the sense that radiographers and oncologists have to communicate and be responsive to each other, but not in the sense that they are performing the same activity together. Even radiographers aren't synced with other radiographers in that sense; they are doing the same job according to the same standard, but not together at the same time.
Dress codes at work are more casual and varied than they used to be. Yes, you would get funny looks if you wore a sports jersey to work, but have you ever seen historical videos of crowds of people in 1920 Paris or 1910 Los Angeles? Every man among hundreds is wearing the same black suit.
Also, oncologists and radiographers are particularly repetitive jobs. Each patient or X-ray is fairly similar to the previous one. There are many jobs that are much less repetitive than that, that didn't use to exist. A computer programmer never writes the same function twice. An engineer never designs the same widget twice. A researcher never writes the same research paper twice. A marketer never uses the same ad campaign twice. A novelist never writes the same paragraph twice.
You used the example of a radiographer making some innovation and getting others to sync on it. I would make a distinction between synchronization for the sake of unity (a dance troupe, a dress code, an ISO standard) and "synchronization" because each individual is independently making a rational decision for themselves, which happen to be the same decision. The second is not really "synchronization" because it is from individual choices, not social order. If a researcher produces some innovation that spreads naturally because it just works better, then that's not really synchronization. It's only true synchronization if it's done for purposes of social unity, i.e. if a standards body says, "this is how everyone must do things now."
Also, even if a researcher does produce an innovation that becomes an official standard, the researcher - the most valuable person in this scenario - is not part of the synchronization he initiated. He's not executing the innovation, and after milking the topic with some more papers and talks, he will move on to researching something else, because that's a researcher's job.
No, there is much more synchronisation. Peasants had huge variations in the tools they used, the crops they planted, and so on. Agriculture was manual, piecemeal and varied - you can still see this in some developing countries, and it's why output varies so widely from plot to plot. And outside agriculture, the majority of products were artisanal items (shoes, clothes, furniture, etc) made to an idiosyncratic and variable standard. Now we have legions of call centre workers literally reading off a script, factory workers highly synced in a production line, and so on.
A programmer (hopefully!) never writes the same function twice, but he and his colleagues are synchronised on the language, coding standards, interface specification, test framework, process for pushing to prod, etc. He gets fired if he decides to do things his own way. Most likely the systems won't even allow him to bypass the process. Compare that to the way the humblest peasant would make clothes for her family, let alone an actual artisan. And despite being intensely synchronised compared to the past, programmers are intensely un-synchronised compared to a more typical modern worker (e.g. retail, food service, etc).
You seem to want to hold the past to a different standard than the present. No-one told medieval peasants when to thresh, or Parisian commuters what suit to wear, and they weren't acting for purposes of social unity. Choice vs social order is a spectrum, anyway. The real difference between then and now is that in 1920s Paris the individual commuters all wanted to fit in, and they succeeded, and now they all want to stand out, and they (necessarily) fail.
We would do better to embrace much more synchronisation. Look how McDonalds has made cheap, delicious food available worldwide by an intensely synchronised process. Every McDonald's fry-cook is doing the same thing in the same way at the same time in the same uniform to the same standards, in hundreds of countries worldwide. Look how synchronisation has raised output and productivity, and reduced variance, in agriculture, industry, services, management practices, etc. If developers were more standardised, they would be able to build more reliable software more quickly, and actually earn the title of Software Engineer. This synchronisation is why we have been able to make these processes more capital intensive, and can dream of making more people redundant in future.
Unfortunately, people think that following procedures is infra dig, and makes them seem more like a McDonalds fry-cook than a unique artist. No doubt this is Forager Ethics run amok. There has always been some of this undercurrent (see the rebellions against Taylorism), but we're wealthier now so we can afford more self-indulgence. This leads to doctors refusing to use checklists, teachers refusing to do Direct Instruction, and even claims that doing the same thing at the same time is fascism.
There may be more standardization within some occupations, but there's now a vast variety of occupations that did not exist for medieval serfs. It could be quantified this way: the chance that any two randomly selected workers from a geographic community are doing the same or a very similar thing at the same time, is now much lower, compared to medieval times. This is undeniable.
Medieval farming wasn't so heterogeneous. Between different kingdoms and climates, perhaps somewhat. But within one fiefdom all the serfs pretty much had the same tools and worked the fields together on communally-specified days, in between the church holidays, which they all observed.
McDonald's fry cooks are synchronized with each other, certainly. But what percentage of workers are McDonald's fry cooks? It's not 90%, it's not 1%. It's a fraction of 1%. Even if you count fry cooks in general (who are *not* so synchronized with each other), that's only about 0.3% of the population. McDonald's fry cooks may be synchronized *with each other*, but they're very much *de*synchronized from the rest of the population.
Fry cooks - like other front line jobs - aren't paid a lot. Why? Do you think it's just "Forager Ethics"? Or is it something to do with them not adding as much value?
Why don't you switch jobs from whatever your current one is, to a fry cook or assembly line worker? Those are the most regimented, synchronized jobs around. Would you be better off if you did?
Making the same decision as everyone else for the purpose of "wanting to fit in," like 1920s Paris men, is very much in the category of synchronization.
You obviously aren't responding to what I wrote so further discussion is pointless, but for the benefit of observers - I am not saying people should take the most regimented job. That wouldn't increase synchronisation at all. Instead, people should take the job they are best at, and try and do it in a highly regimented way, and standardise their colleagues' behaviour too. That will make you rich and society better off.
You made a bunch of points, most of which I did respond to.
Nowadays, if your job is capable of being highly regimented, it is at risk of being automated. Or at least, the highly regimented parts will be automated, leaving the human to do the things that can't be so clearly specified. Clerks, accountants, doctors, lawyers - nobody is entirely safe, because they're competing with machines. In part this is the reason McDonald's workers and assembly line workers are low paid: they're competing with machines and robots.
I think this really cuts to the heart of postmodernism: the rejection of large-scale sources of identity. The postmodernist, post-WWII cultural trend in the west has been toward greater individuality and rejection of mass movements that subsume the individual (communism/fascism). Perhaps the long cultural shadow of the Cold War and the post-60s countercultural memes of "think for yourself, don't be a cog in the machine, man!" contribute. I don't think it's coincidence that two of the most synched areas in modern western society, military and religious observance, are widely considered "conservative" cultural spheres.
At the same time, we do see the emergence of subtler forms of synch, if we allow for the concept of "asynchronous synch" without it being an oxymoron: the mass emulation via Tiktok trends and social media memes is grounded in synching oneself into implicitly understood forms and symbols.
I think a more positive reading would see this as a sign of human capital and movement up Maslow's hierarchy of needs toward individual self-actualization. As Brian Moore comments, synchronized behaviors often compensate for individual weakness; perhaps individuals are less weak in the ways that synchronization used to ameliorate. Synchronization could be seen as a form of "training" for outmoded means of labor productivity: now that we no longer need to coordinate movements to bring in the harvest, raise barns, row galleys or march in lockstep, there is no practical outlet for synchronization.
I think the story of why synch is low (individual) status is just mechanical: yes, it is advantageous for a group, but only because it makes up for individual (low-status) weakness. The tiger hunting humans is obviously higher status than the individual humans, who must work together to even have a chance. Definitely early humans would have assigned large, powerful predators a higher place in whatever religious/cultural hierarchy they had.
But that's individual status - societies do indeed gain status collectively from demonstrating that their members can act in synch - think armies marching by. And some of that devolves to the individuals in that society - "look how unified our citizens are!", but really only helps when societies struggle vs each other. At the social event, or restaurant, or sidewalk, we're talking individual (within-society) status.
Synchronization is a way for humans to fit into groups and achieve social status. In Jane Austen's era, elaborate group dancing was a signal of fitness and also membership in the higher social classes. In the modern era the forms of synchronization have changed but it is still everywhere in society: Speech patterns (accents, idioms, jargon), in-jokes, memes, fashion, musical taste, hobbies, conspiracy theories, political views, etc. I don't see any evidence that people are doing less of this today. In the political realm for example there is a lot more in-group/out-group signaling than there was 30 years ago.
Yes of course there's a lot of correlation between humans in their behavior. But direct synching is a particular kind of correlatoin that we do less now.
Radically different people are increasingly (or more likely witnessed) to be reacting to competitive social forces in similar ways. For instance, what’s most obviously happening on what we used to call the “Left” is not at all unlike what’s we’ve most dramatically seen from the “Right” despite their continued, obviously visible, ideological, musical, clothing, or cultural differences. These themes have become more alike than different. It’s not surprising that superficial conflicting values and identity (such as social status, achievement, and charity) are causing groups to react in strategically confusing but fully understandable ways. For example, It’s no more surprising to me to see that the most “selflessly woke” bohemians still need to inhabit the most competitive schools, competing for the most competitive jobs, in the most desirable cities - no more confusing than it is to hear the most “god-fearing, liberty-loving, law-abiding” provincials celebrate 80s-style corporatism, political lawlessness, unabashed book bans, speech-curtailing, religious and cultural identitarianism, and a slew of generally backward, illiberal policy agenda. While the right seems to almost celebrate their own weakness now “before god and country” (common themes in country music) while the left curate, cherish, camouflage, and distain the disgust within their own identity before a growing, more self-aware mob of social condemnation and “forever judgement”. Anyone who thinks ephemeral wokeness is reserved for the sheepish manipulation on the Left has never spent much time truly watching, listening, to the opportunists who lead the Right.
'Back when peasants and other lower class workers were highly synchronized, their more elite superiors were less synchronized'
Jane Austen novels describe a lot of rich people engaged in highly synchronized dances. Thomas Hardy (writing a bit later) described peasant dances in terms that perhaps suggest they were a bit more free form.
I'm wondering if it isn't the fact that the peasants gained more cultural significance as their descendant (the working class) became richer that caused their more free form dancing styles to become more generally adopted.
Dancing in general plays an important role in fitness signaling and courtship, in that a good dancer needs physical and mental talents that are difficult to fake. The elaborate dances of the Jane Austen novels involved mixing of partners, which amounted to a form of speed dating when social norms kept men and women largely separated. Now that these social norms have relaxed, the need for these structured forms of dance have given way to more individualized styles.
Yes, and there’s also high fashion and other elite pursuits--definitely lots of imitation going on in ‘higher’ classes, way beyond the ‘peasants’ (whatever is meant by that term in the way it’s being used by the author).
Re your point on dress: why is suit the highest-status outfit for men?
Tolstoy:
he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes. A heavy, lowering storm-cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to their coats and put them on; others—just like Levin himself—merely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the pleasant coolness of it.
Another row, and yet another row, followed—long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.
On finishing yet another row he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next, but Tit stopped, and going up to the old man said something in a low voice to him. They both looked at the sun. 'What are they talking about, and why doesn't he go back?' thought Levin, not guessing that the peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping, and it was time for their lunch.
What an idea - I love this!
Can you suggest further reading for me to delve into this topic more?
I think of this as a loss of valuing normalcy. Everyone needs to have a degree or earn a lot of money or be important. If you're not special you're a failure.