Narrative Slipstream Effects

Being in the formation need not actually be better than going off solo. It must only seem that way. Weaker classes must view exit as a worse option, whether or not it is actually worse... You don’t need TINA (There Is No Alternative), you only need belief in TINA.

In societies, unlike in goose or vehicle formations, there’s no natural or designed rotation in the higher-energy-cost leader position. Instead, you have dissipative generational wealth-transfer mechanisms, and slow social churn and vertical mobility “rotating” the formation.

The opportunity space must be somewhat legible, and seen to be correlated enough to inspire cooperation, but if you can see it too clearly, and especially see its limits too clearly, cooperation will break down. At the edges of visibility the opportunity space must dissolve into myth.

Grand narratives can be considered large-scale formation flight paths through narrative space, modeled perhaps as a Hofstede space crossed with time. When thousands to millions of people are living out versions of aligned, small stories within a larger one, some stories will represent “drafting” off other stories. Stable societies can b

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There is a case that could be made here that history is in fact a series of convergences and divergences driven by the rise and fall of correlated opportunities on wealth frontiers. That the only reason we ever coordinate enough to form societies is to go after such frontiers, and that otherwise we’re not actually a very social species.

The story ends when enough people stop believing in it, not when the opportunity space actually dries up.

Here’s the thing though: “societal formation flight” only works while societies enjoy long periods of stable orientation and aligned heading. Decades of aligned economic interests is the equivalent of long, shared flight segments. If rich, middle class, and working class face a wealth-production frontier that can be expected to last for decades, it... See more

The middle class and poor too, have exit options. To the extent it is real, the “Great Resignation” (and the similar “laying flat” trend in China) is something like an exit from formation flight.

I suspect we may be on the verge of an antiflock era of history now, at all levels.

The sweet spot is probably some sort of middle-class position, with relatively secure and easy kind of work. Like say being a government employee in a sleepy department, or a tenured professor. You’re not so far ahead that you have to work harder than average to generate the collective slipstream potential, but you’re not so far back that all the s... See more