Applied Critical Theory

Introduction

Critical Theory is a different way of looking at the scarcity mindset - the underlying theme that OSE is negotiating for a solution. Both transhumanists and odd moustached men also negotiate scarcity thinking - the former for a technical solution but not a technological (societal) one, and the latter by genocide.

Here we apply Critical Theory to details of various productive segments of civilization, starting with construction.

Based on Critical Theory, A comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom prevails in advanced industrial civilization, a token of technical progress. - Marcuse. Further- The social reality in advanced industrial societies is that very sophisticated systems of domination are in place and they are capable of transforming themselves to meet the challenge of any movement for liberation. Ie, in a world of absolute abundance, the myth of scarcity prevails. Here we make observations, towards eradicating such artificial scarcity. The point is to be taken: the mechanisms for scarcity are subtle. Scarcity = unfreedom. Here we explore some of these subtleties.

Construction

• Architects defend the agency of tradespeople by not producing detailed design documents, nor digital automated design-build protocols, which would incidentally eliminate both the architect and specialized tradesperson from the equation. The subtlety in this is that not producing detailed design (ie, supporting a disintegrated design-build process where people figure things out on the fly) drives labor costs up by a factor of - not only 2 or so - but 5 according to our build data. See Comparison of OSE Build Costs to Industry Standards and the data link in the Links section.

Thugs

There exists organized crime which involves a mechanism of violence for securing a livelihood. Russian kleptocrats, drug lords, military juntas, and mafias fall into this category. Very pernicious it is when such governance is written into the legal system, such as in Russia. Yet subtle hegemony of more sophisticated systems (like Marcuse talks about) - that are widely accepted as legal - has perhaps a much greater negative effect on society. Corruption is only a few percent of the global economy - 5% of global GDP according to the UN [1]. The part that is the status quo is the vast majority, constituting grand larceny of global proportion.