Friday 17 June 2016

Continual Compensation

When a product grows too fast for its platform, we encounter bottlenecking issues.  People don't upgrade their computers every year - hell, my computer is 7 years old - but user software is continually developing.  Facebook got to a point where videos and photos were chewing through people's data and making their internet devices slow right down, so they had to change the way visual media is executed.  Facebook has become so resource hungry as of late that they've had to change the way we view our feeds.  No, Facebook doesn't change every so often just to annoy you, it's actually to benefit you with a better, more streamlined and suitable interface for your internet device.

Now for the point that you inevitably anticipated... everything else is the same - including religion.  Cars become faster, so more safety features need to be added to compensate for an increase in risk.  Faster cars use more fuel, so the focus shifts to designing more economical engines.

In very ancient times, things like lightening, sickness and ultimate purpose were not understood, so humans compensated by filling in the gaps with the concept of the supernatural.  Epilepsy was explained as being caused by demons, sickness was explained as being the result of a curse, lightening was explained as being a manifested wrath of the gods and ultimate purpose was rationalised as a result of being created.  This worked fine for a time, but eventually we discovered new things, new and more rational explanations.  After a few millennia, lightening was discovered to be an electrical discharge, sickness was discovered to be caused by microorganisms and biological defects, epilepsy was discovered to be a result of a neurological malfunction and as for ultimate purpose, opinions are still divided due to the tough grasp of ontological security.

50 years ago, it was wrong for an unmarried Christian couple to hold hands.  Today, it’s wrong in some Islamic states for an unmarried couple to hold hands.  50 years ago, it was wrong for a Christian woman to show too much skin.  Today, it’s wrong in some Islamic states for a woman to show any skin at all.  50 years ago it was wrong for a married Christian couple to divorce.  Over the years, divorce became more common so a compensation had to eventually be made and is now accepted by most Christian denominations that divorce isn’t that bad.  All kinds of cherry picking of the Bible sees to it that it is justified.  Unmarried couples holding hands is ok because compensation was made by broadening the boundaries.  In free speech society, it has become easier to walk away from ridicule so many popular denominations compensated by not ridiculing couples for living together while unmarried, finally accepting gay people without prejudice and seeing prosperity as being a gift from God rather than an obstacle in the way of eternal life.

When we compensate, we find balance.  This is true in any situation, whether it be religion, mechanical engineering, computing, politics, society, medical science, the process of evolution and everything else.  The path of least resistance always wins out, but some situations take far longer.  In cosmological terms, modern society has only been around for a few minutes, so we still have a long way to go before we finally iron out the rough spots like war, poverty, etc.  But we will get there.  Eventually.

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