Why is logic and reason spreading faster today than in the past?
Are they? Unless you mean that as a synonym for Progressivism, I've missed that bit.
(Actually, wait.... why are we using the word post-modernism to mean anti-science? That doesn't make sense...)
Postmodernism isn't just a literary theory.
Because my current working hypothesis for the Leftward trend of history has thus far boils down to technological progress. I thought Reactionaries et al were going to provide an alternative explanation involving power structures and perverse incentives.
You can't have an Emperor surrounded by legions of Mandarins if everyone is out in the bush looking for acorns; you need agriculture and specialization long before anyone starts talking about the Mandate of Heaven or tracing out dynasties. The same way you couldn't expect someone to come up with Black Bloc tactics without there already being ubiquitous video recording.
But you could have crop rotation without building the Forbidden City; technology is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. The incentives are no less real and no less perverse if they require a technological substrate to be effective.
Unless you mean that as a synonym for Progressivism
I'm talking about the greater literacy and mathematical proficiency, coupled with a decline in superstition and religious belief among cultures that have had the longest exposure to information technology.
The incentives are no less real and no less perverse if they require a technological substrate to be effective.
Oh, ok that makes more sense.
People want to tell everything instead of telling the best 15 words. They want to learn everything instead of the best 15 words. In this thread, instead post the best 15-words from a book you've read recently (or anything else). It has to stand on its own. It's not a summary, the whole value needs to be contained in those words.
I'll start in the comments below.
(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)