Useful term I discovered this week: “toxic mimicry”. It’s the pattern of substituting systems/organisations/services that look superficially like they fill a core societal need but in fact act to take up the space that a genuine system would fill, and only provide virtual nutrition.
Examples:
- 6pm TV news mimics public discourse
- Malls mimic public spaces
- Daycare mimics collective child rearing
I like the term as it suggests something predatory and insidious.
Another couple of examples I personally am interested in are :
- how the “fitness industry” and gym culture mimics the human need for regular variety and skill development in movement.
- too many to count in the area of food and nutrition.
Alexander suggested “predatory mimicry” as an alternative term, and I really like that for situations where the intent is clearly to substitute a false solution when a real one is demanded.
An example might be “plastic recycling” as waste reduction. Most plastics can’t be recycled profitably but we built massive “recycling” systems that till recently shipped the plastic to East Asia (mostly China), where they landfilled most of it.
@[email protected] or perhaps "parasitic mimicry" to really swing home the predatory and insidious bits
Correction, the suggestion was “parasitic mimicry”, and all three suggest subtle variations on the theme, to me.
EDIT: removed automatic CW from previous post.
@StephGunther they aren’t without value, I used youthline as a teenager a few times. Thats kind-of the trick with the mimics, they sort-of help but only for superficial cases, or only in ways that don’t also empower people.
A phone line cannot establish a relationship of trust with you. You mostly get a different operator each time, some great, some terrible, but all limited in what they can offer. They can usually call the cops on you, but can’t refer you.
@dznz
"a Potemkin facsimile of a real system"
I misread that as 'a Pokemon facsimile of a real system' 😁
... which is also apt: catering to children's innate curiosity and 'collecting things' urge, not with info about the real world, but with facile and ultimately pointless pretend things... strikes me as parasitic too.
@dznz
Yup. I was just springboarding from my micro-momentary misread. I'd certainly never suggest all toys should be 'educational'. But - since it cropped up - Pokemon, especially in the mobile-phone, rushing-around craze version, seems particularly pointless. (Yes, I got hooked, briefly 😳)
I mean, it doesn't have to be all train-spotting... but at least train-spotting teaches you about, well, trains. Which is useful for some people to know about. "The Pikachu arriving at platform 1 is the..."
@dznz Ah, but I find that generally when you cannot see why it is a financial reason, you are not looking at where the money train is...
(and often it is about how it enriches certain donors in some way, that politicians expect to be reciprocated later with jobs...)
@stufromoz I hear you, and “follow the money” is a useful heuristic that does often make things clearer. I’ve just frequently seen it misused in a way that prevents deeper analysis.
Arbitrary example: open office layouts, by all measures, in every study ever done, decrease productivity across the board. But their persistence is often explained as being somehow financially motivated, which obscures the managerial desire to see “work” performed.
@dznz Open office layouts are actually even simpler. The space you need is less than having separate rooms.
And then because it means that middle managers can see people are working (and not goofing off) it became about productivity. When the reality, it started as "we can make this fitout cheaper for you, and fit more people in the floorspace by removing walls and separated offices"
Making offices a symbol of status also means that the plebs cannot see how little managers often do...
@stufromoz a couple of interesting thoughts there. I suppose the first is to note that your final paragraph indicates that they serve the function of enforcing power dynamics, which is not at all a financial analysis.
This serves my point, which is that reaching for “$” as an explanation can be reductive. It’s not that money isn’t involved it’s that I’ve seen it used to dismiss or ignore other mechanics at play. Second thought in next post ⬇️
@stufromoz The thing is that a cheaper fit out is a one-time fixed cost, in exchange for a perpetual reduction in the financial productivity of all employees. The two ways this “makes sense” is if the hand paying the first isn’t attached to the hand paying for the second, or if there are other factors involved, such as the beliefs and culture of the decision makers.
Working from home is the cheapest of all for employers, but they fight it tooth and nail.
@dznz For me, the fact of open plan as cheaper, started as a financial thing.. Then the feelings of management got involved with the idea that making it a big thing for other reasons (calling it ideology is probably too strong, feelings is probably better) But it started with the "how do I save on office space/fit more staff in this space" idea of cost saving, and grew from there...
Every time anyone proposes to change back, the cost reason is invoked. (I have worked in large and small companies and it still happens)
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