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Why do societies make disastrous decisions? - Coggle Diagram
Why do societies make disastrous decisions?
Conflict of Interest amongst the Elites v. Masses
Product of Protection: When the Elites can conceal themselves from their consequence,to they are most likely to continue their actions despite the negative effects society must face.
Competitions for Prestige: Seen within the Norse and Mayan societies, competitions to maintain power and status spiraled out of control and lead to the collapse of societies.
Solution: Government regulation and restriction on the Elites will make it a lot less likely for the Elites to continue such destructive behavior. Additionally, when the Elites cannot conceal themselves from their consequences, societies are a lot less likely due to the Elites
Impact of Illiteracy and Inexperience
Illiteracy: Seen within ancient societies that predate writing, the impact of illiteracy and be detrimental. Not being able to keep proper accounts of history to deal with reoccurring problems becomes a liability. Additionally, when faced with new problems the society can not react properly.
Inexperience: When faced with new problems, societies are unable to properly react because they have no previous experience with the problem. Depending on how the situation is handled, this can either lead to the society’s immediate collapse or its eventual collapse.
Inexperience + Illiteracy- Vulnerability and Predictability. When a trend of improper record keeping and inexperience are compounded, societies become vulnerable to new situations and predictable in their way of solving them. This can lead to their collapse from external forces like invasion, climate, etc. or internal forces like corruption, resource depletion, etc.
Limited Resources
Problems that come with Limited Resources: The issue in having limited resources is that one cannot appropriately react or combat any situation facing society, that exceeds the resources exceeding the resources. Thus, without the aid of surrounding societies, societies must solve their situation or suffer the consequences of the problem.
Effects: Seen throughout history, the effects of limited resources can be minimally obstructive to maximally detrimental. Economic collapse, trade dependency, external aid and much more are examples of such.
Example: Montana is an example of a near collapsing society that falls prey to limited resources and Conflict of Interest. As a result of corporation mining and fracking, Montana has a mineral deposit problem that they can’t afford to fix due to their weak state economy. By letting this problem persist, toxins, in the form of run-off, poison water ways and nearby ecosystems.
Creeping Normalcy
Seen in gradual degrading changes that become normalized because society doesn’t recognize these changes.(i.e. Changes are slow, not sudden).
Landscape Amnesia (Outsiders v. Locals):
Outsiders: Visits periodically and notices visible changes in landscape
Locals: Normalizes dramatic changes that Outsider notices due to constant exposure which leads to normalcy.
Normalcy is a dangerous aspect of society because it prevents action from being taken when the subject/thing being normalized is detrimental to society. An example of this is seen in historical censorship, where censored/strained information becomes ingrained in a society’s history.
Societal apathy + Fear
Impact of Societal Apathy: With societal apathy, it is more likely that a society will collapse due to inaction of a problem. This inaction stems from participating members believing that the problem has no bearing on themselves or out of pure carelessness to act upon the situation. Nonetheless, societal apathy is a detrimental aspect of any functioning society.
Fear: A society may collapse as a result of societal fear. When this happens, society won’t act or will improperly act on a problem due to the immense fear of failure and the consequences that come with it. instead members of society will choose to ignore the problem because what you don’t recognize cant scare you.
(Fear and apathy work hand-in-hand; society becomes so scared that to mentally and emotionally conceal themselves from the issue, they choose to not act upon it. Generations of silence build to a society full of apathetic members.)
Is this seen today?
Yes, this is seen with many issues from Climate Change to Civil Rights (i.e. Current BLM protests). Fear applies to Climate Change because we know of the dangers it will bring forth, but society as a whole elects to ignore it because:
A. They profit from it
Or
B. They are terrified and choose to ignore; ignorance is bliss
With civil rights its apathy. Members of society not affected by systemic racism choose to not act in favor of civil rights because it doesn’t affect them.