Cops on Segways

The Segway sounds tremendously cool, but it's goofy-looking. We want our transportation long, thin, and sleek. The Segway looks wide, fat, and chunky. Cops on motorcycles evoke absolute cool, perfectly melding two images that scream "tough!" Cops on bicycles borrow from their motorized cousins while evoking nimble athleticism and accessibility. Cops on Segways evokes Michael Dukakis in a tank. They invite ridicule.

I think this strikes to the heart of the discomfort I have with Segways. You stand on a platform and give up control and balance to its wheels. You don't appear stable to an observer, and you don't feel in control. (I've never ridden one, so consider this observation and conjecture.)

Authority figures need to feel authoritative. A cop needs to feel in control. You get pulled over, and the officer takes her time in the cruiser behind you, puts on the mirror shades, and swaggers up to the driver-side window. All of this says: I am in control, you take your cues from me.

Dukakis looked ridiculous in the tank because he treated it like an amusement park ride: big goofy grins, thumbs up. He didn't look like a serious adult.

Cops won't look serious on Segways. Cops will hate them.

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And in separate news from Ironic Times: "Trains running on time in France"  

8:31:13 AM  comment []    

It's not so much that American culture is universally superior to that which it replaces; it isn't. In fact, in most ways it is not superior and may even be inferior. But in the shakeout phase, what's critical is that it doesn't have any fatal weaknesses, and the things it is vanquishing, although perhaps extremely impressive in some ways, are fatally flawed in other ways. In the inevitable shakeout phase, lack-of-weaknesses is more important than presence-of-virtues.

Arab Muslim culture is one of those being crushed. Those who attacked us are trying to prevent their traditional culture from being rolled over by the Western juggernaut. Were this a biological selection process, everyone would just go their way and eventually the losers would become extinct.

But another critical difference between Lamarckian cultural evolution and Darwinian biological evolution is that memes can fight back. They can reform themselves to improve their chances, for instance, or they can actively marshal their resources to try to destroy competing memes (i.e. they can fight wars). Examples of both exist all over the place in history.

The great strength of Western (especially American) culture is that it is particularly good at adopting the best it sees from competing systems and improving itself in that way. Because of that it has gotten progressively stronger and more widespread.

The great weakness of extremist Arab Muslim culture is that it does not do so. It is the nature of its meme that it rejects any change. But because of that, it is becoming progressively less competitive. It's now backed into a corner: it can fight or die.

12:52:52 AM  comment []