Maybe manufactured scarcity can work if everyone agrees to maintain the value of the ritual regardless of the ubiquity of its components
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Replying to @tobyshorin
Why do you think other forms of scarcity (social, meaning, opportunity, etc) are less compelling for ritual design than pure material scarcity?
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Replying to @simpolism
For one, I see meaning as an output of ritual not its input (really it's a more complex dynamic but that's a simple way to describe how I think about it). But my comments don't just apply to abundance of objects; I'm not sure social environments are scarce either (always online)
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Replying to @tobyshorin @simpolism
When I say we live in a society of abundance I don't just mean material goods but the apparent abundance of other qualities as well. It's not even rare to get radicalized these days!
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Replying to @tobyshorin
I see social scarcity as a lack of deep/intimate social interaction, rather than lack of any interaction (c.f. atomization). Similarly, I see contemporary "scarcity" in general as being primarily phenomenological (scarcity of certain desired types of experiences or feelings).
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Replying to @simpolism
oh boy this is really making me excavate some assumptions I have about how meaning works. Gonna have to think this through and get back to you in a bit
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Replying to @tobyshorin @simpolism
Ritual and meaning are a feedback loop, but the predominant outcome of ritual is the production of meaning. Depth and intimacy are also enhanced through ritual, although the effectiveness of a ritual will be heightened if strong social bonds are already present.
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Replying to @tobyshorin @simpolism
What I'm trying to say is that solving the "scarcity" of certain types of feeling states is the whole point of ritual. Depth/intimacy can be a precondition for a successful ritual, but not a designable input such as an object, aesthetic, or activity
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Replying to @tobyshorin
Taking it further, maybe: a ritual is a context-dependent set of actions that converts scarce physical resources (incl. time/energy) into experience, including but not limited to the experience of "meaning" (you can have rituals w other outputs, e.g. mindfulness calms you down).
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Replying to @simpolism
just read
@cesifoti's Why Information Grows and I'm pretty sure that we can combine it with this perspective to outline a fully blown newtonian political economy of meaning2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
Seems like another recommendation for this book! Has kept coming up.
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