Society and meta-levels

[chess]

It occurred to me, while walking home through a building site, just how complicated our society has become.

The concept which struck me was this - I work as a tester for a company which produces software which people use to make using a piece of someone else' software easier, the other piece of software in turn mostly being used as the back end to some other kind of application software, which is usually something used in the administration of some actual productive activity. Despite being several meta-layers down from anything which directly relates to actual physical production or processing of Stuff, I make an excellent living doing this.

It strikes me as quite strange and unsettling that our corner of the world has enough overproduction to allow me to do this, especially while some people are still scratching in the dirt for a living, with basically no infrastructure supporting their efforts.

Comments

[passage.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone in the business of food being moved around the country: looking at the second law of thermodynamics hard enough will quickly convince you that one of the most enrergy consuming activities is organisation.

To make organisation possible food actually gets moved quite a long way regardless.

If there's a Tesco sitting next to a farm the flour will have had a far more circuitous route than corn leaping over the fence.