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Culture preserved in living form past a certain time, outside of museums, acquires this rotting, pickled stench (metaphoric and sometimes literal) beneath a facade of aliveness. It is unnatural for a living culture to not change unrecognizably within a few generations.
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From Finite And Infinite Games: because the natural state of the world is constant change, we can demonstrate power by repeating the same ritual indefinitely. But a creepy, dishonest signal when the people repeating the ritual have no power, merely nobody bothers to interfere.
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I'm not sure that's universally true: e.g. medieval European culture moved quite slowly. Culture does have to mutate at least as fast as its technology, or it does start to rot.
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