Human Scale

New York-based Humanscale aims to lead the next wave in design, sourcing, manufacturing, and product lifecycle, even as its furniture supports a healthy, more intuitive, more active way for people to work. Humanscale, a global leader in workplace ergonomics, guides all its operations by four pillars: Function, Simplicity, Longevity, and…

. . . and recognized that scale matters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom#Career “It was long unanimously held among economists that natural resources that were collectively used would be over-exploited and destroyed in the long-term. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters and forests. She showed that, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.”

sanity: . household . family . extended family . neighborhood . community . village . town . county . bioregion insanity: . nation-state . empire . United States of America . United States of Europe . Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . “world government”

A real community wouldn’t abide indifference. It’s bad for everyone if some people are suffering to the point of destitution or disease. There are countries where enough in the way of communitarian sensibility remains such that common care legislation is the norm … scale and homogeneity being conducive to such. …

Having communitarian predilections, people want to identify with a collective. It’s a sorry aspect of modernity that they can conflate the nation-state with community. Kirk Sale’s latest book is entitled “Life Without Government,” but I think it’s actually critiquing the nation-state more than government-in-general. If you prefer to call local…

It’s not that they’re bad or faulty or inadequate. They’re amazing. What’s problematic is a particular consequence. They over-expand our domain of possibility, experience, choice. The technologies enable. They enable us to consider going so far, doing so much, broadening our scope. Over-broadening our scope. Anathema re: human scale. That’s why our lives have become so complex and stressful. Why our attention is all over the place. Why we generally are not even aware of what we’ve lost in the bargain.

It violates our key principle: Human scale. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/san-francisco-gay-mens-chorus-soloists-received-death-threats-220837705.html San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus soloists receive death threats after satirical song is misunderstood Critics have used various Twitter accounts to take screenshots of the chorus, numbered the individuals and created spreadsheets, harassing them, even at their places of work. …

. . . the extent of downscaling that would make sense. * * * * The extent of downscaling that would make sense is nothing short of breathtaking. It’s almost inconceivable to us moderns. We live with our heads in Cyberspace, Media, Institutions, Geopolitics, the Economy, etc. Those things are…

Time has passed since the collapse of what used to be referred to as “real existing socialism.” That was the Soviet model and the socialist-oriented nationalizations of industry attempted in many other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nationalizations_by_country After reflection, a new New Left now talks more about cooperativization than statist expropriation, more about…