Comments on: Pattern panic

By: steve

steve — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:01:37 +0000

I think a fair-minded person would have to say that the Tofflers (Future Shock, The Third Wave) nailed most of this stuff long ago. They lack cachet and so don’t get much credit for it, but they were talking about “the accelerative thrust” and “modular personaities” and “ad hocracy” and all this stuff over thirty years ago. The internet turbocharges all these trends, but the trends themselves are surprisingly close to what they first noticed. I don’t buy all their neo-Marxist technological determinism or every detail, but they did lay out a more-or-less coherent set of linked trends that turned out to be pretty valid.

The first successful shotgun futurist I believe was John Naisbett with Megatrends.

By: dilys

dilys — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:14:52 +0000

Gene’s comment mentioning the Enlightenment is provocative. Isn’t it a truism of “science” that tested falsifiable hypotheses allow events to be predicted and thus controlled via “if…then”? The pattern-function that assures us of prediction and control has become comfortable, and we rely on it. But emergent self-organizing arrays require much shorter-term open-ended in-the-alternative response, since they are less predictable or repetitive. Dancing in RealTime, not pontification and policy. Requires the sacrifice of much habit and certainty, and hinges more on integrity, courage, and perhaps intelligence (at least in “quickness” and requisite variety functions.)

And I agree with Tom that we may see a good deal of spurious-to-demented attachment to one hypothesized pattern or another, accompanying freak-out in some quarters. Interesting times.

By: The TrueTalk Blog

The TrueTalk Blog — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:59:42 +0000

Is Marketing Surrendering Yet?

Three wee items which, when connected, form a pattern (see my buddy Grant McCracken’s thoughts on pattern panic yesterday) about advertising. First, Tim Manners quotes Robert Stephens of Best Buy saying (download PDF of The Hub Magazine to find piece)

By: Tom Guarriello

Tom Guarriello — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:23:18 +0000

It’s interesting. When I was reading the post and got to the part about the Carrey movie I thought, “yeah, we used to have a name for that kind of ‘pattern panic’ back in the state mental institutions I worked in; it was called ‘paranoid schizophrenia’ “. Then I read the comment about over-categorization being a way to stay sane in an insane world and I had to take a step back and marvel at where we’ve gotten to. Where is that? I think to a place where the unlikely becomes possible and the impossible unlikely. Seen all this buzz about “The Secret”? Seen the cover of Oprah magazine this month: “Trust your gut; it’s NEVER WRONG.” There’s a pattern there and it makes lots of folks sweaty in the palms, if not exactly panicky, I’ll tell you that. These cloud-related pieces are terrific posts, by the way.

By: jaynie

jaynie — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:48:39 +0000

Great post. In a backwards way, I think the societal freak-out may have something to do with a NEW pattern as well: that of post-modern communication taking on an organized form within new media. As oxymoronic as that seems, social networking and online communities have been persistently stabbing away at ordering disjointedness (intentionally or not), and the audience begins to forget to look for patterns anymore, as it’s basically being done for them; and, when they realize they’ve lost that primal drive— PANIC. In a sweeping sense, we can’t smuggle the online world into any kind of “trend” camp anymore (as we may have been able to do easily in 1994).

By: Carol Gee

Carol Gee — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:04:29 +0000

Great post that got me to thinking. Our brains require that something must fit into a category for it to be remembered. We have to figure out “what hook to hang it on.” Otherwise the neurons just spark off and the item seems irretrievable. Over-categorization is the culprit producing stereotypical thinking. The autistic person is unable to differentiate amongst equally powerful in-coming stiimulii, and must do repetitive behaviors to calm the cacaphony with no recognizable pattern. What you are describing are our efforts to stay sane in a sometimes insane world, I think.

By: Glen

Glen — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:22:49 +0000

Your last few posts on the cloudiness and opaqueness of culture and the intellectual landscape are right on. I think the days of “rationality” are over…intellectuals are going to finally have to let go of their attachment to the Enlightenment and arrive at the current age of complexity, ambiguousness and emergence.