[Torg] 16 & 17 (Social Axiom, 5 of 8)

[Jones Jasyn]

16- Trans-national federations can now incorporate nation-states with differing, but compatible cultural norms. A unifying national identify is no longer necessary for political cohesion (but still aids greatly).

Techniques for gathering and analyzing psychological and sociological data improve. The “observer effect” can be corrected for, allowing for more accurate observations.

Greater understanding of the evolutionary pressures that affect societies allows sociologists to identify how social norms interact with other variables (such as climate, geography, technology, etc.) to cause the growth and death of cultures. The first laws of social development can be propounded. Sociology improves in scope and accuracy. Cultural maladies (norms that threaten cultural survival) can now be identified and diagnosed. Using mass propaganda techniques, the behaviors of individuals can be affected on a wide scale, but altering social norms takes a generation or longer.

Applied sociology improves, allowing greater accuracy in anticipating and affecting the behavior of organizations. Based on this, organizational techniques improve, allowing for flexible and rapid decision making processes. Bureaucracies can become less “bureaucratic”, more reliably balancing the implementation of policy with situational flexibility.

Psychological techniques improve greatly, surpassing psychoactive drugs in efficiency. Modifications to an individual’s personality can be accomplished through purely social techniques; such modifications cannot change an individual’s basic personality, but can mitigate or eliminate neuroses and other mental conditions.

A comprehensive theory of linguistics is possible, this allows translation to become much easier. Trained individuals can translate between any language (even those previously unknown to them) with a few weeks of work. Dead or lost languages can be analyzed and interpreted.

The understanding of economic interactions improve, verifiable laws of economics can be formulated.

17- Civic nationalism can now include groups of varying ethnic, cultural, or ideological composition; such groups can adopt a common civic identity. Comprehensive civic nationalism allows for the existence of trans-national federal governments (one state that includes multiple nations). The authority of the central government is limited to areas where agreement on values and policy exist. Depending on the specific cultures involved, the central government can have exercise a great deal of authority or very little.

A comprehensive theory of integrated human behavior is possible, unifying psychology and sociology. The affects of individual psychology on social norms (and vice versa) can now be determined. By altering individual behavior, predictable changes in society can be effected.

Social dissemination techniques become possible. These allow a large-scale alteration of cultural norms (or imposition of new norms, “splicing” them into the society) through mass propaganda techniques. Using these processes, norms can be altered in a decade or less.

Social engineering, designing cultures and societies from whole cloth, develops. Such artificial social structures can prove more efficient than “organic” cultures, balancing a large variety of mores, factions, and values. When properly designed, these societies are free from many of the inherent defects of hereditary cultures.

Therapeutic techniques can greatly modify a personality, causing or curing even severe mental pathologies. Treatment of nearly all forms of mental illness is advanced enough that the vast majority are diagnosed and cured in early childhood.

“Mind sculpting” (temporary personality modification) is now available as an art form. This allows individuals to have their personality modified for recreational use.

Knowledge of personal interactions improve; all social skills become more effective.

Linguistics improve enough to allow wholly alien languages to be analyzed and understood. Sociological advances allow comprehensive understanding of alien cultures. Individuals of radically alien psychological makeup can now be naturalized.

Understanding of economic laws improve, economic intervention becomes a reliable endeavor. Instead of poorly understood and largely ineffective economic interventions, economic policy can be implemented effectively and efficiently.
--
Jasyn Jones
jasynj (at) gmail (dot) com

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Check out my Torg webpage, Storm Knights:
web.me.com/stormknights/