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To a first approximation, there are no social bubbles where "yay murder" against the right targets isn't an applause line. Social homogeneity minimizes the friction created by this element of human nature by ensuring that those far away in values-space are also far away in physical space. Rapid values change means that social homogeneity goes away, and we lose the necessary protection of distance.
What is the difference between the division between, say, France and England or the Christian and Muslim worlds and Pillarization? Division is the large-scale social norm for humans, isn't it?
I think part of why I understand how tempting "bubbling up" can be is that I'm such a big fan of the "borderline-autistic nerds" social bubble in particular.
"... we can't expect to meet on everything right away, you and I. So I won't ask you to say that the Dark Lord was wrong to kill my mother, just say that it was... sad. We won't talk about whether or not it was necessary, whether it was justified. I'll just ask you to say that it was sad that it happened, that my mother's life was valuable too, you'll just say that for now. And I'll say it was sad that Narcissa died, because her life was also worth something. We can't expect to agree on everything right away, but if we start out by saying that every life is precious, that it's sad when anyone dies, then I know we'll meet someday. That's what I want you to say. Not who was right. Not who was wrong. Just that it was sad ..."
I think this was surprisingly poignant for me because the moralist in me wants to say that this sentiment is so trivially, obviously true that it's not worth any melodrama, whereas the cynic in me wants to say that it's so empirically, historically doomed that it's not worth any optimism, and there's a lot of tension from that dilemma.
Are you thinking historically or currently? E.g. currently, trade between the UK and France is something like $100B/year right now, so they're hardly shunning each other, but historically, I'd say the Hundred Years' War meets my "embarrassing failure mode for a society" criterion hands down.
Rapid values change and rapid communication. It's awesome to be able to learn about others' beliefs directly without a clueless game of telephone in between; it's admittedly less awesome when your neighbor can also get all the data they want but is still clueless about how to turn it into information.
I'd hope we might build up some immunity to memetic assault, over generations, ideally as people who take on poor values learn from their mistakes and teach their kids better, possibly as they just end up with fewer kids. I guess the biggest problem here is that, more than the France/England or Christendom/Dar-al-Islam separations, pillarization within a single country makes it much less safe to let your countrymen make their own mistakes, so long as they can vote to make their mistakes yours too. Or maybe we'll find that nasty memes can evolve faster than our immunity to them can? Nobody worries about "The Gin Craze" anymore, but the descendants of people who could resist "the devil's brew" etc. are now finding it harder to cope with fentanyl...
Or maybe it'll all be moot for one reason or another; everything's changing fast now, not just our values.
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