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There is no real defense against mediocrity. Institutionalization is the structural compromise between mediocrity and exceptionalism. An instrument of detente between the self-congratulatory esotericism of self-anointed elites and basic apathy of mediocrities they must rely on.
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“Institutionalize fast” is the “fail fast” of the human condition. The sooner any sort of utopian is forced into a reckoning with mediocrity of humans, the less painful it is. The longer an ideology persists in a pre-institutional intellectual state, the more cancerous it gets.
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Institutions are a means of healthy disillusionment of radical utopian sensibilities, as well as a delivery mechanism for consolation prizes of enlightenment cynicism, compassion, pragmatism, and live-and-let-live survival. Good things humans *only* accept as consolation prizes.
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No aspirational ideal of human nature survives first contact with actual humans. Institutionalization is a means to accelerate that encounter. When the committees form, the fever dream ends, people look at each other, warts and all, shrug, and start trying to get along.
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One reason this works is a very direct analogy to compiling/testing in programming. An institution is basically the compiled code form of an ideology, that must run in clueless brains without crashing so often it cannot function. The clueless are excellent robots.
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Hmm. 2x2: Mediocre vs exceptional. Self-aware vs non-self-aware. MS = sociopath MNS = loser ENS = clueless ES = suicidal, not a stable state
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A great trick is operating at two resolutions where you institutionalize into a pristine order at say 75 dpi, but exhibit organic chaos at 300dpi, with 150dpi as transitional resolution. I know only a couple of institutions that pull off this magic trick. Essence of leveling up.
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It’s an institution getting into its own OODA loop at a structural level. Like single-called organisms evolving to multicellular and supracellulat resolution being much more orderly than subcellular. I’ve been trying to figure out the playbook for this for years.
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I agree with this sentiment in principle but also think about the writings of Milan Kundera who captured the absurdity of post-WWII Czech communism as it did just that and formed Institutions that were quite scary in their de-humanising stupidity
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It is revealing that pre-institutionalization socialism as an ideology has outlived institutionalized communism though. Those absurdities are why it crashed in 70 years instead of remaining an aspirational fever dream for 700. Tested against reality.
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