On Organization....

[Random Probability]

I can't do funnay, so...

You were warned.

I was reading 1984 and got to chapter 2 when my brain started to shit this annoying crap:

[/funnay]


   Children will flock towards organizations which recognize and reinforce their budding sense of self.  When denied access to such organizations they form their own.  It is as natural as breathing and as desirable as fucking.  Nothing can stop it.  Nothing can prevent it.  It is hardwired into the genes.  All that can be done is to direct and control it.

   Some societies understand this.  Some don't.  When the need for organization and recognition is catered to, the children fall straight into line.  They require a life external to the household.  They crave it like a drug.  They need it more desperately than sex.  It nourishes their lives and their souls in ways nothing else can.

   Fulfilling this need is simplicity itself.  Modern civilization meets these needs with carefully contrived paradigms wherein their children are allowed to govern their own behavior according to previously agreed upon rules of conduct.  The most convenient form of such an organization is the sports team.  The sport doesn't matter so long as it is physical and allows the children to compete for domination among their peers.  Natural leaders inevitably arise, star players reveal themselves, and everyone shares in the harmonious glow of mutually cooperative combative behavior.

   Other outlets for this behavioral requirement exist.  Every culture harbors their own private youth paramilitary organization.  Possessing everything except weapons, these organizations harness the self-organizing tribal impulse and firmly lash it to a nationally recognized entity.  Core values beholden to the host culture are taught, reinforced and rewarded.

   When such tools are denied to children, however, they will create their own tribes in the form of youth gangs.  In these instances their behavior is regulated by adaptation to their real world situation rather than the fictitious constraints of a fantasy world.  The need to eat being a primary day-to-day motivation of all animal species, these gangs will focus their activities towards revenue-generation by any means at their disposal.  Being that legitimate businesses require operating capital, government regulated licensing and oversite, and many other legal and monetary barriers, the only possible source of income for gangs is necessarily extra legal.

   The economies which develop among the youth gangs of "civilized" countries invariably center around drugs and prostitution.  These are two industries which are, by their very nature, are self-renewing and always in demand.  Drug manufacturers are always looking for outlets for their product, so sources are relatively simple to procure.  Prostitution is even simpler since roughly half the population anywhere is female, and any female can be utilized to generate a profit.

   In these criminal economies we see, at least during their infancy, completely unrestricted capitalism.  Business owners exploit the maximum resources they can manage while demanding the absolute highest prices the market can bear.  Initially everyone involved acquires cash far in excess of what they could in the legitimate market at their skill level.  This quickly creates extreme instabilities in the host community.

   With money comes power.  People have proven time and again to be willing to do absolutely anything in exchange for money.  The power that comes with having money, the independence from the fear of starvation, the intoxicating feel of exerting influence upon others, has at its roots the basic traits of human tribal culture bonding; competition and dominance.  Because individuals as organisms respond favorably to the postive reinforcement caused by endorphins released in response to their position of domination and well being, this realization of power becomes addictive.

   If left uncontrolled, dominance-seeking impulses coupled with sufficient funding inevitably result in coups and wars.  However, the mechanism that allows these wars are also the means to curtail them.  As these self-organizing societies evolve, eventually the dominant organisms at the top being to realize the threat posed by those below them.  Quite frequently the threat posed by ones subordinates is never fully appreciated since the controls which make them subordinant in the first place are the same ones which typically keep them under control, and so are taken for granted.

   The proper means for maintaining a status quo is for the dominant organsim(s) to deprive those below them of the means to realize independence from the fear of starvation.  This is typically accomplished by forcing them into the role of gathering revenue.  This serves the triumvirate function of reinforcing the leader's dominance, providing the proletariat with their means of living, and simultaneously consuming the proles' ability to act.

   Interestingly, these controls can be seen at all levels of society.  The vast majority of the population is deprived of the means of financial independence since the possession of such would undermine the stability of society as a whole.  Conversely, it can be argued that the absence from the fear of starvation will decrease any motivation towards mutually cooperative dominance behaviors.  However, imbalances will always exist in any social model, so it would only be a matter of time before the slightest instability escalated to the point where auto-organization occured and a new "gang" was born.  Perhaps more troubling is the realization that in any would-be utopian society, the animalistic urge for peer group recognition, self-organization and domination is guaranteed to create new and unpredicatable groups unless those urges are very carefully controlled.

   It is therefore imperitive to exert control on the greatest number of individuals possible within society starting at the earliest possible age.  Previously religion was used as the primary tool for establishing core values among members with a single national identity.  Ethnic values were also woven into the tapestry in order to differentiate one nation-group from another.  With the power of religion on the wan and multi-culturalism begining to supplant monolithic ethnic nationalism, new controls are needed.  In large part sports are able to fulfill the role previously played by religion.  They provide an outlet for auto-organization impulses and serve to occupy most of the free-time of the population at large.

   But not everyone worships at the altars of the NFL, NBA or MLB (or whatever national sports team you have).  For the sports-meme resistant the powers-that-be are desperately trying to find something to lure and occupy their interests.  For these people there is the internet.  So far it is a playground for auto-organizing entities, most of which are completely harmless beyond the series of tubes which spawned them, but don't be fooled.  Those in control are very much aware that there is an international conspiracy of independantly minded individuals who are resistant to traditional controls.  And they are still trying to figure out what the fuck to do about it.

   The only thing you can be sure of, given recent developments in SW Asia, is that when they don't know quite how to go about controlling something, then they'll just go ahead and cut off your fucking intertubes.


   I'm going to go back to keeping my fucking mouth shut.  That is all.
[*edit: added spaces between paragraphs.*]

Note:  This was just a thought that passed through my head.  I felt like putting it on the infotarded superdriveway hoping it would get picked up by a pleasant serial killer truck driver.
[funnay]

[barumunk]

wow... no spaces between the paragraphs makes me really not wanna read it... but maybe i'll give it another go.... later

[Random Probability]

It's probably not worth reading, and even less worth commenting on.  Just a half-formed thought that spewed out of my brain and further proof as to why I should post as sparingly as possible.  Anywhere.

[Cain]

One criticism - the most effective gangs nowadays are multi-national and multi-ethnic in their composition.  Usually one segment of the operation will be farmed out to an ethnically centered gang (for example, Mexicans act as the smuggling section of an operation, the Chinese may actually transport the human traffick to Mexico, and it may be American/Italian organized crime groups who put the trafficked people to work) which actually suggests the organized crime groups are ahead of nation states when it comes to economic cooperation.  This is pretty important when you realize they make up 1/3 of all global earnings. 

Apart from that, I find little to disagree with.

[Jasper]

You're sure 1/3 is verifiable?  Sounds like its' gotta be inflated.

[Cain]

Official reports say 10%, but thats based on crimes we know happened.

Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy magazine, reckons it to be 1/3, because you have to remember its not just drugs anymore, its drugs, people, arms (where telling legitimate from illegitimate is very hard), contraband and counterfeit goods.  Also factor in lost earnings from copyright violation and filesharing.

Admittedly, not all of that is totally organized crime, but organized crime generally is less organized than we like to think, and it is all illegal transnational crime.

[Pope Lecherous]

   It is therefore imperitive to exert control on the greatest number of individuals possible within society starting at the earliest possible age.  Previously religion was used as the primary tool for establishing core values among members with a single national identity.  Ethnic values were also woven into the tapestry in order to differentiate one nation-group from another.  With the power of religion on the wan and multi-culturalism begining to supplant monolithic ethnic nationalism, new controls are needed.  In large part sports are able to fulfill the role previously played by religion.  They provide an outlet for auto-organization impulses and serve to occupy most of the free-time of the population at large.

As i understand the goal here would be to supress people's natural urge to survive, or seek dominance.  How can you run a concentration camp without guards?  The masses would have to be handled as such, but who would handle them?  What influence would they have on those they guard and wouldnt these people ruin the entire effort?

[Random Probability]

One criticism - the most effective gangs nowadays are multi-national and multi-ethnic in their composition.  Usually one segment of the operation will be farmed out to an ethnically centered gang (for example, Mexicans act as the smuggling section of an operation, the Chinese may actually transport the human traffick to Mexico, and it may be American/Italian organized crime groups who put the trafficked people to work) which actually suggests the organized crime groups are ahead of nation states when it comes to economic cooperation.  This is pretty important when you realize they make up 1/3 of all global earnings. 

This was mostly just a 'stream of consciousness' ejaculation; literary diarrhea if you will.

My brain was concentrating on the concept of the attraction individuals feel towards groups that reinforce their sense of self worth (or give them one in the first place).  I cut myself short since my brain was chasing various concepts down five or six divergent paths at the time.

As I see it, the move towards globalization (and even post-globalization) among criminal gangs is a natural adaptation of this auto-organizing instinct given the reality of our world today.  Or, possibly (more correctly), the existence of high speed and easily accessable channels of travel and communication are responsible for expanding "gang" activity into the realm of international crime.  That is to say, drugs and slaves rarely find a market in the region where they are produced, much in the same way Detroit doesn't purchase all of the cars is produces.  Some measure of international business is required to do anything these days.  However, this wasn't my point.

When I wrote the OP, the two things I was considering, primarily, were the instinctual attraction towards group formation in the first place, and the development of self governing rules within such a group.  I believe if we can identify how such groups form and how they organize, then we can begin to influence the formation such groups or learn to dismantle existing groups not to our liking.  As a purely intellectual exercise, however, I am fascinated by the prospect of seeing how subcultures develop and if there are fundamental rules which govern how the pieces of the original host culture are coopted, adopted or modifed to fit within the new social paradigm.

[Cain]

It would be interesting to find out, I agree.

Very interesting, in fact. 

My belief is there is a 'critical mass' of members and activity any group can undertake before it starts coming into conflict with cultural norms.  Based on their own identity politics, reaction to them bushing the boundaries, contacts of members and other, as yet undetermined factors, I believe cause the decision to either knuckle under or expand beyond those norms to be made.  But I havent honestly tested or investigated this.

[East Coast Hustle]

interesting early-morning reading, to be sure.

I like the idea of experimenting with the ability to turn this to our advantage.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

interesting early-morning reading, to be sure.

I like the idea of experimenting with the ability to turn this to our advantage.

Anonymous may be an example of how this could turn to our advantage.

[East Coast Hustle]

pretty fuckin' shining example, if you ask me!

ECH,
has never been more proud of a pack of internet nerds