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
@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.
Daniel
Steph Gunther 
💉💉💉💉
Patrick Lam 