Segregation
The evil of segregation is most infamously associated with the American plantation economy, and many thought segregation ended with Martin Luther King's tour of Washington, D.C. However, this is far from reality; segregation has taken less obvious and more sinister forms, some subtler than historical precedents, many a mere repetition of history. Throughout history, segregation was the gold standard for aristocratic management; knights and priests resided in high castles far from the villages, and "barbarians" and nomads were barred from entering the fief. Serfs living in the countryside could never enter the boyars’ city where craftsmen and mercenaries served their lords.
The advent of the French Revolution nominally abolished segregation, but the barriers among economic strata did not end with Napoleon’s dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The new bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie culture sought to prolong economic segregation, ensuring their serfs remained land-bound and culturally despised the landless peasants who would form slums adjacent to the white palaces of the plutocrats.
The theory is that countries with economic freedom must not have experienced economic segregation. Modern economic segregation takes the form of alienation and exclusion, by carefully managing occupation volume, the undesirables are excluded from the system. In theory, everyone is welcome, however, in reality, all social agencies enforce the “strict dressing codes.”
Hostile architecture, the prize-winning, renowned, beautiful, but malign art of human ingenuity, is the vanguard of economic segregation. In the City of Angels, all flat surfaces are marked by soft lines, not real barriers, but a mere suggestion of rejection. The only place you can find comfort and solace is the foreign embassy’s open garden, where you can sit even in the priciest neighborhood. People are encouraged to dress according to their vocation, not needs. Petite bourgeoisie culture becomes the most charming, as the yardstick for the socially stagnant working class’s dressing code. Despite the reality in such a city, the bourgeoisie never touch the ground and only go up, petite bourgeoisie never sit in the front row, the middle class drives (a proper automotive) or is driven away from parties. At least they appear equal when they enter the same building and await angels to descend from the helipad. The horrifying reality is that it’s not the beginning but the end. The old towns still preserve the concrete monuments of their not-so-distant past, less than 30 years ago, everything was more or less equal. Even the rarity, benches donated by deceased couples, are common in those old towns. However, the old towns are neither old nor obsolete; across the ocean, thousands of new “old angel towns” are being erected every year in other rising new star cities. Will they suffer the same fate and taste economic segregation like the City of Angels? Those girls are as youthful as 30 years ago, but not as beautiful because they lack the luxury clothing and Korean cosmetics. They can sit anywhere when they get tired after visiting the shopping and business district, a luxury that must be paid in full 30 years later. They can marry anyone and allow their kids to roam free and have a real childhood. However, their children must send the next generation to luxury after-school tutors to secure a middle-class lifestyle. Across the seas, many cities tell a story of generations. The past is about equality and friendship among the peasants, the present is about landless peasants entering the city, and the future is about bankrupt, unemployed, obsolete production functions (labor) being driven out of the city. For one city-state, there cannot be a future when all lands are owned; no home is free, there can only be a mass exodus.
End of Bamboo Shoot Growth
The typical turning point would be the end of the bamboo shoot growth of the average teenager's height. As the economy improves but the food price stays relatively stable, cheap protein supports rapid growth in average height for the next generation of teenagers. However, as the economy starts to stagger and growth slows down, food prices will catch up and the price of cheap protein, including milk, will start to explode. In the long run, the price for nutritional food will become out of reach for the average family, restarting the stratification of body height.
Privatization of Knowledge
My past theme has always been the privatization of knowledge and kicking books out of classrooms. However, a key distinction between robotic repetition training of learned knowledge and fresh knowledge is that fresh knowledge can be used in further logic induction. The burning down of cyberspace libraries and limiting information sharing, AI crawlers may finally kill the open internet by forcing those open sites to become dark webs is another level of privatization on a global scale. If free and open information becomes toxic, the entire open internet becomes toxic, and the derivatives or crawlers spread venom instead of enlightenment. This is beside the point but an open stereotype of online information by the middle class of those nations, those having a stable job and economic stability would further see the demonized internet as a source of economic upheaval and children’s insubordination. The draining of public education and degradation of science in primary school play a key historical role in hollowing out domestic secondary education and reliance on expensive foreign diplomas. Students are encouraged to jump into the political whirlpool of attention-grabbing street politics instead of focusing on comparative politics and historical significance of such events. This made them vulnerable to political hijacking, and easy Trojan horse decoys. Each shall know according to their vocation plan, and political status. They shall be dreadnought when punishing public enemies and timid when facing the stick of the law. Is social parenthood part of such privatization? Nobody would bother to feed knowledge to the kids when the nursing caretakers are required by law to perform certain parenting functions. It would only become an act of mercy to give away a book or a piece of news in addition to legally required care, which may backfire badly if the kids report such a caregiver to the supervisor for disseminating unsolicited information. Teachers for their social crediting rubric would encourage only studying the subject may benefit the student’s grade with their imperfect understanding of the world without the perfect hindsight of the whole picture. They would encourage students to report anyone harming their learning opportunity, either by playing games or reading thought-crime-inducing materials. Or the careless mama of the room just gives everyone permission to use a cellphone to earn herself a long-needed break time? Using a cellphone for ephemeral entertainment has been the fastest, cheapest, and easiest way for parents to sedate their children without cries. True knowledge can’t be taught; it can only be tutored.
Cutting off the “Inter” Net
The Open Internet is dead.
Before Internet 1.0, we once lived in the world of “Intelligentsia” -net v0.7 (Internet Pre-alpha), an internet purely for the highly educated, everyone had great ideals and causes, believed in something greater than themselves. It was open, free, but perfectly segregated by education and wealth.
The internet 1.0 saw the middle class and working families joining the internet, supporting a pluralism of content, a sea of content. Internet 2.0 truly blossomed when the reach of the internet reached 70%, or the raw percentage of internet access reached 90% (one person, many devices). Everything online became more profitable than offline. I don’t know how to call it, the next stage, is it Internet 3.0 or just a fork off 2.0. Everything becomes private and dark web, internet access limited to a few mega sites. Key internet functions become inaccessible without a key to the mega apps. The open internet will slowly die and fade away. The most labor-intensive part of the internet, that is creating new content and feeding correct content to the search engine, will simply end. You will only be able to either find contents that were 10 years old which means they become totally useless or the content locked behind an app wall, or just AI-generated content more useless than the 10-year-old internet zombie.
Self-Sufficient Sub-Economies
The more commonly known black market, if allowed unchecked growth, will eventually become a living organism of its own. However, sub-economies are different. In a segregated economy, all labor and output would supply within the limited range while the main economy continuously dominated by the mega chain conglomerates. Those who occupy key infrastructure would collude and create a “sub-economy” or, in this case, the mainstream fork. While the rest cannot supply labor nor sell the end-products on the market, unable to afford transportation or advertisement, will supply only the local market. The price to penetrate the local market will either be too great or the profit too slim for the major players. They cannot sufficiently discriminate in a more transparent society; if they enter a price war with the sub-economies, there will be an arbitrage opportunity for those who observed the signal to take advantage. For example, cheap protein like chicken and eggs supplied to the small sub-economy at a special price would be easy prey for those who can afford the information and transport to buy the special price chicken and eggs in large volume and in effect save the sub-economy from peril. Over time the sub-economy would develop its own tailored product to gain more advantage when the local customer faces a choice between major pricey chain elevated its seeming value by advertisements. This will enforce the segregation by marking the customers by their regional preferences and forcing the segregation to realize into the next chapter.
Desensitized Emotions in Educational Systems
In the academic arenas of the city, where the sky is perceived as the limit, young professionals encounter myriad opportunities. However, in these environments, failure is categorically unacceptable. The educational system, particularly within prestigious institutions, imposes rigorous graduation requirements, designed to filter out 30%-50% of its students. This system methodically eradicates any semblance of compassion, embedding a culture where mercy is seen as a weakness rather than a virtue. The prevailing educational ethos is founded on a rigid hierarchical structure, which is markedly detached from real-world production relationships.
As students navigate through their academic courses, their confidence is continually shaped by a punitive and rewarding feedback mechanism. They are conditioned to show no empathy towards their peers—viewing them as competitors rather than collaborators, which directly impacts the survival of their own academic and professional aspirations. This survival-of-the-fittest approach not only sustains the academic elite but mirrors the broader societal structure where the lower working classes uphold the luxuries of the high bourgeoisie.
The grading system reinforces this divide, with the failing grades of many ensuring the success and scholarship of the elite 1%. This structure bears resemblance to the K-16 system, infamously dubbed as “the dilution,” where diplomas are awarded with minimal regard for true academic achievement, and education quality is markedly diluted. Conversely, the reactionary systems that resemble the American GED framework promote inclusivity but at the cost of academic rigor, often diluting content to ensure higher graduation rates. These systems typically favor social sciences over the empirical demands of engineering or hard sciences, aligning with more liberal educational movements.
The outcome of such educational environments is a generation of students who, regardless of the equality of knowledge provided, end up either as the merciless elite or the ineffectual lower tiers, with their potential stifled and their critical faculties underdeveloped. Universities, historically the bastions of challenging and revolutionary ideas in fields ranging from sociology to political economy, now oscillate between being instruments of stringent control or arenas of benign neglect.
Furthermore, universities were traditionally established as tools for the clergy to replicate societal norms without the need for biological reproduction, marrying spiritual ideals with academic pursuits. Today, these institutions often serve to perpetuate the status quo, disincentivizing genuine innovation or societal engagement that might challenge existing power structures. Thus, they have become mere extensions of the societal segregation they are positioned to critique and potentially dismantle.
In conclusion, the educational system, as it stands, is ill-equipped to address or adapt to the pressing societal issues such as wage stagnation and economic segregation. It fails to prepare students for the realities of a world marked by strife and division, suggesting a profound need for a reevaluation of how education is structured and delivered. The most significant challenge for government and educational policymakers remains identifying and implementing real, substantive changes that transcend traditional academic paradigms and better prepare students for the complexities of contemporary life.
Comprehensive Analysis of Urban Segregation in Two Cyberpunk Cities
In the cyberpunk narrative of two distinct cities, segregation is a deliberate strategy orchestrated by the elites, particularly those from the professional managerial class. This class, which primarily inhabits the human resources departments of major banks in the upper city, actively suppresses initiatives aimed at redistributing wealth or advancing public works that could support communal living similar to successful models in European cities such as those in Spain and Belgium.
The media plays a crucial role in these cities, often reflecting the upper middle class's deep disconnect with the lower strata. This class is depicted as ignorant of basic facts about food production and supply chain management, highlighting a significant disconnect with practical life skills. This ignorance extends to their understanding of economics, where they see value only through immediate financial savings at the checkout, rather than through sustainable practices that could contribute to communal wealth and self-sufficiency.
In such a segregated society, the cultural division is stark, exacerbated by the use of different languages: the official language of the ruling elites, the administrative mandarin used by the bureaucrats, and the local creole spoken by the ordinary citizens. This linguistic stratification ensures that different classes cannot communicate directly without intermediaries, effectively cementing social barriers.
When unrest occurs, the elite's response—such as rationing luxury items—demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the economic realities of the lower classes. These actions, which aim to quell dissent, often fail to address the underlying issues or impact the intended demographic, illustrating the misalignment between the governing bodies and the populace.
Central to the governance of these cities is the PMC (Professional Managerial Class), which operates under the guidance of foreign overlords. This class is sustained through a compensation system known as the "super wage," which, while appearing generous, is merely a fraction of the operational savings achieved by reducing human resource costs. This system benefits the upper echelons economically while maintaining a strict control over the lower classes, ensuring the status quo is upheld.
Furthermore, strategies to maintain this segregation include employing token rewards to cultivate loyalty and compliance among middle management. This practice ensures that those in pivotal positions remain aligned with the interests of the elite, discouraging any potential challenges to the established order.
The analysis of these two cyberpunk cities reveals deep-rooted issues of urban segregation that mirror real-world socioeconomic disparities. It underscores the need for a critical reevaluation of urban governance strategies and highlights the importance of inclusive policy-making that addresses the needs and rights of all urban residents. This reflection prompts a broader dialogue on the ethics of urban planning and the role of leadership in fostering environments that support social integration and mobility, rather than perpetuating divisions.
Strategies for Building and Sustaining a Robust Management System: Key Considerations
To effectively build and maintain a management system that minimizes potential setbacks, it is crucial to adopt strategic approaches in selecting and developing personnel, ensuring loyalty, and cultivating leadership. Here are essential steps to consider:
1. Implementing a Token Reward System:
· Focus on selecting individuals who are not only compliant and agreeable but also intelligent and capable of self-deception under challenging objectives. It is vital to choose those who believe in the cause despite apparent setbacks, as they are likely to remain dedicated without immediate rewards. This group tends to show gratitude and loyalty, proving invaluable in long-term scenarios where change is gradual.
2. Cultivating Loyalty:
· Recognize that true loyalty often stems from inherent traits rather than merely learned behavior. Identify individuals displaying a natural inclination towards loyalty and commitment. Invest in these individuals heavily, as they form the backbone of a stable and reliable team. This approach goes beyond simple training programs and extends into selecting and fostering innate qualities.
3. Developing Robust Middle Management:
· Middle management plays a pivotal role in any organization, acting as the crucial link between upper management and operational staff. Prioritize the recruitment of elite candidates from specialized training programs or vocational centers who show promise in leadership and critical thinking. Ensure their training is comprehensive, preparing them to handle real-world interactions and customer engagement effectively. High middle management should ideally consist of individuals who are not just followers but who can enforce company policies with conviction.
4. Fostering a Culture of Leadership and Innovation:
· Establish a culture that values pioneering ideas and leadership from an early age. Initiatives like management-focused high schools or early career tracking programs can be effective. These programs help in scouting and nurturing young talent, preparing them for higher responsibilities as they mature. It is crucial to ensure these young leaders are aligned with the organization's core values to prevent the rise of dissenting ideologies that could disrupt the system.
5. Community and Engagement:
· Encourage a sense of community and active engagement within the organization through clubs and social activities that reinforce the company's values and goals. This not only helps in building a coherent team but also in instilling a sense of belonging and loyalty among members.
6. Cultivating Sense of Ownership with Strategic Dependency:
i. Implementing Single-Channel, Valve-Style Communication:
Develop a communication system that functions like a one-way valve, where information flows from the top down but not vice versa. This model ensures that lower-tier employees receive all directives from a single authoritative source, reducing confusion and consolidating control. Additionally, it prevents upward flow of feedback or dissent that could challenge the hierarchical structure.
ii. Maintaining Mystique and Control Through Opaque Communication:
Use opaque communication techniques to keep certain aspects of the business strategy and operational details shrouded in secrecy. By selectively disclosing information, management can cultivate an aura of mystique and command. This approach not only reinforces the hierarchy but also keeps employees guessing about the full breadth of the organization’s internal dynamics.
iii. Encouraging Distrust and Competition Among Employees:
Deliberately foster a competitive environment by setting up systems that pit employees against each other for rewards and recognition. This can be facilitated by ambiguous performance metrics and irregular, surprise evaluations. Such a climate of uncertainty and competition can prevent alliances among lower-tier employees and keep them focused on individual performance over collective bargaining.
Subscribe
and Like!
By focusing on these strategic areas, organizations can develop a management system that is not only efficient and effective but also resilient against potential challenges. Unlock Exclusive Insights: Subscribe for in-depth explorations of management systems and their impact on your organization. As we delve deeper into the potential repercussions of tight control in our next discussion, Stay in the Know: Like our page for the latest updates on building effective management systems.