what causes a well-functioning civilization to turn inwards and stop advancing technologicallyOh, a lack of necessity. Remember, "advance" is in the eye of the beholder. If you're not living a bad life, you don't need an "advancement." Ask the farming Yorkie of 1690 if he needed to "advance" to "factory worker."
Diamond is like Lessig - a great writer with wonderful arguments and a commanding personality... and his books depend on a lot of broken premises he is too lazy to validate or defend.
Re: advance, I was thinking of it more as "this will make my life easier/improve my chances for survival" rather than as an inexorable path of "this is forward in civilization". Indeed, that's one of the other areas that I think is underexplored in Diamond's work -- I don't think there is one unified inexorable path to progress, but rather a cloud of possibilities, any one of which can further a civilization. So it's not agrarian -> industrial -> information age necessarily -- I think that's way oversimplifying. But yes, if one is doing just fine as it is, there's not anywhere near as much of a motivation to innovate as there is when one will die starving if one doesn't. It's not all wolf at the door.
Re: underpinnings, I was ascribing that mostly to them being pop-science books rather than academic books, but yeah, I would love to see more about where he got his criteria in the first place. He just sort of presents them springing forth from Zeus's brow, and then goes on to talk about them.
(i did NTP back in the day, and am friendly with Theatre of Yugen and Theatre Nohgaku folks.) i can't really imagine reading about Noh without audiovisual support. i didn't get it until i saw it, and even then live beats tape. there's no way to accurately describe the presence of a Noh master. it's so different from what we expect from theatre, even compared to kabuki and dance. i'd be curious to hear your response to Noh performance as a martial artist. to me, Iaido kata (as seen in demos) seem very similar to Noh. maybe i'm responding to seeing Jo-ha-kyū.
I've seen what is almost assuredly the cheesy version at Japanese cultural festivals, but I've never seen what I think is a serious, authentic version. (I have seen kabuki and butoh, but yeah, they're sort of the punk rock bastard grandchildren.) Should I ever get the opportunity to see any, I'll let you know what I think.
I think it's worth reading, even if I didn't get it.
I made the mistake of taking a date to butoh once. Artistic smack in the head. Great performance. Worst setter of romantic mood ever. [facepalm] Maybe it was the flying rope of tongues that killed the mood.
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Diamond is like Lessig - a great writer with wonderful arguments and a commanding personality... and his books depend on a lot of broken premises he is too lazy to validate or defend.
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Re: underpinnings, I was ascribing that mostly to them being pop-science books rather than academic books, but yeah, I would love to see more about where he got his criteria in the first place. He just sort of presents them springing forth from Zeus's brow, and then goes on to talk about them.
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i can't really imagine reading about Noh without audiovisual support. i didn't get it until i saw it, and even then live beats tape. there's no way to accurately describe the presence of a Noh master. it's so different from what we expect from theatre, even compared to kabuki and dance.
i'd be curious to hear your response to Noh performance as a martial artist. to me, Iaido kata (as seen in demos) seem very similar to Noh. maybe i'm responding to seeing Jo-ha-kyū.
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I made the mistake of taking a date to butoh once. Artistic smack in the head. Great performance. Worst setter of romantic mood ever. [facepalm] Maybe it was the flying rope of tongues that killed the mood.
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