jace: I didn’t think I’d ever be saying this, but…

Kiran Jonnalagadda (

jace) wrote,
@ 2006-10-05 16:43:00

I didn’t think I’d ever be saying this, but…
… if there's one conclusion that's been repeatedly impressed on me the last few months, it is that homogeneity is a good and desirable state of society. Homogeneity is not the opposite of diversity. It is instead the common platform for a higher order of diversity.

Life is the process of adding a new layer to the homogeneity stack, pushing diversity a bar higher. Societies that insist on retaining their notion of diversity at lower levels are only setting themselves up for much pain.

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mannu
2006-10-05 11:43 am UTC (link)

Wow. I had the same thought, but about software. In the beginning, there's diversity, there's innovation. Then it becomes important to standardise; with standardisation, innovation slows down at that level--but you're set up for innovation at a higher level. From computers (x86) to operating systems, from operating systems (POSIX) to programming languages, from programming languages (Java, C#) to web browsers. It's what I call the Innovation-Standardisation Curve. Every technology follows the curve.

I didn't think this applied to society as well.

(Reply to this)

deponti
2006-10-05 11:57 am UTC (link)

Understood (a little of) what you say after reading

mannu's comment...but would still like to discuss this more. The important thing is for the next level of diversity to happen BEFORE the homogeneity goes to a level where it snuffs out budding diversity. All homogeneity imo is inherently against budding diversity..."no, you cannot do that, that is not the custom."

You're posting after a LONG while..where have you been?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

jace
2006-10-05 04:24 pm UTC (link)

Diversity and homogeneity are both natural states. The first happens when something is ignored. The second happens when something is too important to be ignored.

The fun bit is when homogeneity is enforced to match the naturally evolved state of another place (I suppose in reality it always happens in bits, never a wholesale lifting from one place to another). That's where a "no, you cannot do that" comes from.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	jace 2006-10-05 04:27 pm UTC (link)
	It's only been a week… and a half… since the last post. Busy with work, I guess. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	thaths 2006-10-06 02:45 am UTC (link)
	What do you mean by homegeneity at lower levels of society? Could you give an example (or two)? In the case of biology, I am unable to think of homegeneity existing for Life. Even at the lowest levels there is quite a lot of diversity - virii, bacteria, cells,... (Reply to this) (Thread)

jace
2006-10-06 04:52 am UTC (link)

I may end up looking like an idiot to a better informed self for attempting to declare biology similar to society, but:

In life, we do have homogenisation. Look at the standardisation in vertebrates. (Nearly) all of them have two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, lungs attached to the nose, a food pipe attached to the mouth, stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, and of course, a heart and circulatory system, brain and nervous system, and skeleton. That's the kit. The specifics vary, but the kit is always there. It's the base platform. You couldn't have a primate without having the platform standardised first. Diversity at the low end of the scale is a given. Diversity at the high of the scale also exists, despite the standardised platform.

I don't mean a lower level of society, but a society with a lower level of homogeneity. Take the vehicles on Indian roads, for example. They come in all kinds of shapes. By simplified classification, pedal powered two wheelers, motor powered two wheelers, three wheelers, four wheelers, and six+ wheelers. The driver of each of these looks at the road differently. Lane discipline only makes sense to vehicles that are approximately the width of the lane, ie four wheelers. The two wheelers folks are happy with narrow lanes and roundabouts at crossings. The four wheeler folks want their roads wide, dislike roundabouts but hate traffic lights more, and would ideally have a grade separator. The pedal powered folks detest that completely. They want flat roads.

A system of traffic management that attempts to embrace this diversity ends up pleasing none, which is quite plainly the case in Bangalore.

But what if there was homogeneity? What if, say, four wheelers dominated, creating a vehicular base that are all rectangular, of roughly the same width and proportional length and height? Voila! Suddenly you have lane discipline and a tendency towards standardised road widths and thanks to those, the possibility of high speed lanes that get you to your destination faster, despite that you're in the same car that didn't work so well in the system with diversity. Despite that in the old system, the car was one of the most dangerous vehicles around. It was big, thereby choking narrow roads, relatively unmanoeuvrable and incapable of getting around traffic without an externally imposed system of discipline, grossly inefficient for its size in fuel consumption and passenger transport, and dangerous because the driver tended to project his safety within the shell onto folks outside.

Yet the same car is a highly productive unit in a homogenous system of traffic. Does this mean the diversity is gone? Do all cars look the same now? That's hardly true, isn't it? The diversity has only (literally) mounted the platform. It's still very much there.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

thaths
2006-10-07 02:31 am UTC (link)

The US comes quite close the sort of vehicular homegeneity that you mention as an example. There are cars here of all sizes and shapes. There are mostly cars and very few pedestrians or autorickshaws or cyclists. And guess what, there are many people here that wish that this homegeneity was not so. It is true that it is much easier for government to build infrastructure using well-know pieces for a wheel-base-homogenized society. But you do see the risks of such an society, don't you. If, for whatever reason, all of OPEC decides to stop selling oil to the US and sells it to China and India, instead, imagine what would happen to the US. It can probably live on its reserves for a couple of years. But how would people commute to work when they have to spend more on petrol than they earn in a day? Walking or bicycling to work is a problem because of the much longer distances involved, etc. The only option left to the US at that point would be to militarily free the flow of oil back to the country.

I know that we are discussing vehicles purely as an example. What I am trying to say by arguing the example further is that homogeneity of the sort you mention leads to making certain decisions that come back to haunt you when the assumptions you made in making that decision are no longer valid.

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jace
2006-10-07 05:18 am UTC (link)

I know that we are discussing vehicles purely as an example. What I am trying to say by arguing the example further is that homogeneity of the sort you mention leads to making certain decisions that come back to haunt you when the assumptions you made in making that decision are no longer valid.

Very true, but then the choice becomes between managing one risk versus living with mostly chaos. The former requires governing institutions that are capable of taking the burden, which is not an easy call, but given the ability to manage risk, it's a better choice than living with chaos.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

shortindiangirl
2006-10-09 05:42 am UTC (link)

> it's a better choice than living with chaos.

Hmm. So the BJP's argument on this would be acceptable to you: Let's kill all the Muslims so we have a homogenously Hindu society. In such a case, instead of living with the pork-beef chaos, we shall move to a different plane of diversity in Hinduism.

I don't mean to flame or provoke with my analogy, but your example of homogenization does not make sense to me because it is making a connection between orderliness or organization and homogenity. But your argument does not support what I thought you were trying to say. So what I understand from your analogy is that while homogenization leads to greater order and control, it does not span a comparable leve of diversity.

Coming back to the automobile example, yes, the 4 wheeler is ubiquitous vehicle in the United States. Widths and sizes are homogenized and standardized. But the 4 wheeler still has the disadvantages that you mentioned it had when it competed for resources with other vehicles. But once there is homogenization, these may be overlooked, because there is no alternative or inadequate alternatives. Also, while car fans see the "higher plane" of diversity, I would argue that this "higher" plane is really a lower plane of diversity rather than comparable or higher.

I can see the connection between diversity / homogeneity and control, but I am having a hard time seeing homogenization leading to higher degrees of diversity.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

jace
2006-10-09 07:02 am UTC (link)

I'm in bit of a rush right now, so I'll respond to the rest later. About this:

Hmm. So the BJP's argument on this would be acceptable to you: Let's kill all the Muslims so we have a homogenously Hindu society. In such a case, instead of living with the pork-beef chaos, we shall move to a different plane of diversity in Hinduism.

No. I may not have been clear about this earlier, but any attempt to create diversity or homogeneity will cause pain. Their creation is a natural process.

For example, in any urban environment, is it not true practitioners of any religion have more in common with each other than uncommon, as against practitioners of the same religion in another part of the world (assuming religious practices are not the only basis for comparison)?

(Reply to this) (Parent)

kingsly
2006-10-07 11:05 am UTC (link)

It can probably live on its reserves for a couple of years.

From wikipedia

The United States has the largest known concentration of oil shale in the world, according to the Bureau of Land Management and holds an estimated 800 gigabarrels of recoverable oil, enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. Oil shale is developable given high enough oil prices, and the technology for converting oil shale to oil has been known since the middle ages.

But I don't doubt that they'll first "free" the flow of the oil before tapping into their reserves.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

kingsly
2006-10-07 11:37 am UTC (link)

The biological example wouldn't hold good because evolution results in more diverse creatures, The only reason you are able to see standardisation is because they all evolved from the same ancestors! And with time all creatures become less homogeneous.

And there is a theory that states that homogeneity is bad for the survival of the species... don't remember if that comes under Darwin's or is separate. The biggest cause for any species to be wiped out in totality is probably homogeneity.

thaths has pointed that out about motor cars and oil.

Think MS Windows, homogeneity is the cause for widespread impact/chaos of worms/viruses.

I seriously doubt if the shape of the vehicles have anything to do with the congestion/jams or flow of traffic. It has more to do with those driving them. From what I've seen that traffic jams in Goa ease out much faster than a smaller sized one in any city(inspite of narrower roads in Goa). Because the people there tend to wait for the vehicles in front to move on.(Trying to push more sand through a funnel will only make the blockage worse.)

If we had wide roads, and everyone followed lane discipline, there'll be less congestion and people could drive faster irrespective of whether they are driving a 2-3-4-6-8-wheeler.(A two-wheeler is just a smaller rectangle!)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

jace
2006-10-07 12:10 pm UTC (link)

You're agreeing with me! I'm saying that homogeneity does not come at the cost of diversity.

Sure, the widespread base of Windows constitutes homogeneity, but don't we have Linux and Mac OS X that are perfectly capable of co-existing with Windows, thus bringing diversity on top of a homogeneous base?

If the basic mammalian characteristics constitute a homogeneous base, the sheer variety of mammals adds diversity. Same at a higher level with primates.

Homogeneity exists without diversity only in an artificially constrained environment.

(I'm not convinced driver discipline is primarily responsible for traffic conditions, but that's diverging from this discussion.)

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shortindiangirl
2006-10-09 05:47 am UTC (link)

To some degree the concepts of diversity and homogeniety is constrained by
1) Our own ability to perceive differences from our biased perspective.
2) Our base set of criteria to define similarity.

Defining that everything is a life form and thus homogenous serves very little purpose. As far as we know this is our diversity, and defining a starting set there may only have meaning to prove a self fulfilling theory. Defining a "set" must needs a goal much like defining a thesis for research. To what end do we define similarities that make a homogenous set ?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

bipin
2006-10-13 07:40 am UTC (link)

Spot on. The difference between 'homogeneous' and 'diverse' is integrally tied to the difference between 'same' and 'similar'. Wouldn't it be possible for the same set to be homogeneous or diverse, depending on which monocle you use?

But getting back to

jace's intial argument - maybe he meant the inherent cost/benefit between standardization and customization?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	jace 2006-10-13 08:52 am UTC (link)
	maybe he meant the inherent cost/benefit between standardization and customization That captures it rather well, thanks. I was wondering if there was anything to said about cost/benefit beyond the immediately apparent monetary component. For example, a baseline standard for culture that allows you to go anywhere in the world and fit in without significant reorientation. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	shortindiangirl 2006-10-13 01:55 pm UTC (link)
	To me the issue of standardization is a different one from the issue of diversity. The former makes the latter conform to certain behavior in specific circumstances. But does not integrally change any living being. At least not suddenly - but one can successfully argue that standardization can change the integral nature of things gradually. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	deepsan 2006-10-06 04:44 am UTC (link)
	a part of Lila talks about this. (Reply to this)

	moccacino 2006-10-06 06:17 am UTC (link)
	Sorry, I may have misinterpreted, but do you mean homogeneity the way communists mean it? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jace 2006-10-06 06:32 am UTC (link)
	How do the communists mean it? I'm not familiar with that. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	moccacino 2006-10-06 06:36 am UTC (link)
	For them, it is economic. What do you mean? Ethnic? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	jace 2006-10-07 05:18 am UTC (link)
	I'm not sure I understand what economic homogeneity is. Do you have a link to somewhere that explains it better? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

moccacino
2006-10-07 06:53 am UTC (link)

I am not politically inclined, so my knowledge in this domain is v.v.v.limited. However, I remember reading it in a book on Marxism at my grandfather's. Google yielded these:
- http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=765649
- http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.16622,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
- http://www.solidnet.org/cgi-bin/agent?parties/0390=iran,_tudeh_party_of_iran/iran.doc

Searching a little more may give better results.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	jace 2006-10-07 08:02 am UTC (link)
	Since I'm not completely sure of what's on my mind, I can't say if it's the same thing. (Reply to this) (Parent)

plasmid
2006-10-07 04:18 pm UTC (link)

I agree to Parent Statement. Complicated discussion but in my opinion Homegeneous State is state of saturation. It is a state of highest order where everything is stable. Homogeneity never contributes much to progress. This state can be important in Statistics but in every other sphere in life diversity is the key, a platform for next set of events leading to homogeneity again. Both are important and complementary- basis of evolution in whatever sphere of life you take an example from bicycles to cars or unicellular organisms to humans or abacus to computers.
A ripple is required otherwise this world will become a difficult place to live. Personally I would not like to live in such a society where there is no variety.

(Reply to this)

shortindiangirl
2006-10-09 05:50 am UTC (link)

Perhaps I would understand your potentially profound thought better if you placed us in the context that you observed in. What are the events of the last few months that have led you to this surprising conclusion ?

Biologically and socially, I had always taken for granted the superiority of diversity over homogeneity. So I'm genuinely trying to wrap my mind around your impression.

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