Here is part two if anyone wants to continue reading: https://paulskallas.substack.com/p/refinement-culture-c1b.
>In human relationships we can't optimize without becoming greedy selfish unethical crooks. And in commerce we prefer relations to transactions, ready to support the local butcher because we feel we are part of a community and we are not alone --we are paid back with a smile and someone who says hello in the street. Indeed the central flaw in optimization is thinking that "everything else" ceases to exist and makes people think the individual, not the collective, is the true unit --when such thinking blows up the system. We humans are punished when we try to optimize, as if we suddenly ceased to be humans.
Another customer was identified as driven by service, banter, tradition, speed, familiarity etc.
It's all relationship.
I disagree. I optimize for myself AND the people around me. That is because I don't feel good when I have everything and others have nothing.
> we are optimized enough for survival already
Survival up to reproduction age, and maybe a bit more for raising grandkids. Past that, everything is our own making - we haven't ever lived so long, and the current epidemic of heart disease and cancer is as a result of never-before-seen ages and chemical substances - like the Standard American Diet.
True. But most try to make sure that they have just a little bit more than anybody else around them.
How much do you optimize for the people around you? Do you spread things between yourself and others equally, or optimize that everyone still get some, but you still get most?
I don't mean that as a challenge or attack. It's a genuine question.
I guess my main gripe was that a lot of your thesis can be explained by trend. Women looking like Kardashian is simply no different than looking like Sophia Lauren in a bygone era. AirBnB's being sameish? Go back to the 70s and notice the uniformity of interior design with plywood, rockwalls, bright orange vinyl, etc. Brand mascots being smoother and slicker - again - just reifying the values of our era in the same way the original mascots reflected the masculine values of their day.
As for your broader argument about refinement (itself a clumsy descriptor for all this) - is this really anything new? Hasn't optimisation been the fundamental constant since humans started doing stuff?