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
Daniel
Mike