Seeing Like a State - 4 views
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From a naturalist's perspective, nearly everything was missing from the state's narrow frame of reference.
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georgenasr on 07 Dec 12This ties directly to what the author was talking about in the introduction. The way we see the efforts and accomplishments of a targeted group depends directly on which perspective we take it. Someone may serve the needs of some people, but not all of them.
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I don't see how the "satisfaction to the king" relates to the varying perspectives later stated. The idea of things in the polis is interesting because it takes physical ideas and turns them into concepts. The example of " the actual tree with its vast number of possible uses was replaced by an abstract tree representing a volume of lumber" shows what i mean. I thought the concepts were very confusing though and did not understand most of this reading.
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The great advantage of such tunnel vision is that it brings into sharp focus certain limited aspects of an otherwise far more complex and unwieldy reality.
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In politics, I believe you need to have people who have this "tunnel vision" as they talk of so that they can be assigned a certain topic and get it done in the most efficient way as it is their specialty. We can have higher leaders in control who are capable of deciding factors involving every area and then others who can focus on specific things. Yes there are ways this could fail but I also think it is a good idea.
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Yeah he can get it done in efficient way, but the repercussions are far greater. With tunnel vision people can fail to look at the variables and how their decisions can affect others and their lives.
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i agree with both, and see the pluses and minuses of tunnel vision. yes, it will help in getting things done in a timely and affective manner, but through tunnel vision other things may be missed out on. they can fail to look at certain important thing because they are too focused on one other one
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I agree with Caitlin. Yes, tunnel vision will get the most done in the shortest amount of time, but when you are looking at something like that it is impossible to see the other outcomes besides the one you are planning for. So I think it is better to have open people get things done, even though it may not be ideal for time purposes.
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I agree with Dana. I think in general it is always better to have an open mind to things. It is better to put more time and effort into something, than to rush through it.
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I agree with what Dana is saying. I think it is always better to be open-minded. The outcome will always be better if you put time and effort into it, rather than to rush through it.
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I think what evryone is saying is true and that usually it is better to have an openmind and it is seen as bad to be narrow minded but in certain cases like this you have to narrow your mind to see things right
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I also agree with what is being said about tunnel vision. It is good in the sense of being able to deeply focus on a problem and find the best solution; however, it is also true that other issues can be overlooked. I think it is good for some of the people in politics to be able to have this "tunnel vision", but there also needs to be those that look at the whole picture so that it provides a stable balance.
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I think this is a particularly efficient way to get these goals accomplished. I believe that it may not be efficient if applied to everything in life, however this in particular works.
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I think it is good for some of the people in politics to be able to have this "tunnel vision. is a particularly efficient way to get these goals finished.
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Agreeing with the others- "Tunnel vision" like this is a fantastic way to get a lot done in a short amount of time, but with the unwanted side-effect of crippling broad, long-term planning. As with many other management techniques, it must be used when the situation calls for it.
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'Tunnel vision' is good for the most part, but what I think is more important, is to view things overall, in the big picture so you know what would last in the long run of things. Tunnel vision would only help you achieve half the battle.
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The state did pay attention to poaching, which impinged on its claim to revenue in wood or its claim to royal game, but otherwise it typically ignored the vast, complex, and negotiated social uses of the forest for hunting and gathering, pasturage, fishing, charcoal making, trapping, and collecting food and valuable minerals as well as the forest's significance for magic, worship, refuge, and so on.
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By having the tunnel vision, they made a quick rash decision, and not worry about other potential benefits of the forest such as the hunting and its value to certain people. They could have easily used the land for better uses, yet did not because of their tunnel vision. They thought of the immediate results, not of the bigger picture at hand.
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I agree, if it had not been for the state's tunnel vision the state may have foreseen the possible consequences of their rash decision. However having such a narrow vision can help in certain way like bring a great focus to certain aspects of an issue. Unfortunately with the narrow vision of the state, the state cannot not see the overall picture of their bad decision leading to dissatisfying results.
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Having tunnel vision is dangerous. Approaching an issue by only looking at one aspect and ignoring all others is irresponsible. This is such an issue in public policy today when one side has tunnel vision for only their ideas and chooses to ignore other ideas, no matter how important or correct they may be. Yes, sometimes tunnel vision is a good thing, but we really need to step back and look at the issue as a big picture and think about how it will effect everyone.
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I completely agree with what everyone is saying. Tunnel vision can have positive effects, but someone has to be able to step back and look at the overall picture. I think that one way to attack problems is to have some of the decision makers having tunnel vision to first gain an idea and then have others step in to address the other side of an issue.
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utilitarian discourse replaces the term "nature" with the term "natural resources,"
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this is something we need to think about. we spend all our thought on nature as 'what can we get from it'.. maybe we should think a little more about nature as a whole, and preserving its natural beauty.
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But do we truly need that? We are people, we utilize our resources. So in turn we must utilize our "natural resources."
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Utilizing natural resources is fine, but not at the expense of nature at the level utilitarianism might allow. Sometimes it is necessary, but when we allow nature to be destroyed continuously and without regulation, natural resources can in turn become deficient, and this is not beneficial to anyone.
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Would it not be a great satisfaction to the king to know at a designated moment every year the number of his subjects, in total and by region, with all the resources, wealth & poverty of each place; [the number] of his nobility and ecclesiastics of all kinds, of men of the robe, of Catholics and of those of the other religion, all separated according to the place of their residence? ... [Would it not be] a useful and necessary pleasure for him to be able, in his own office, to review in an hour's time the present and past condition of a great realm of which he is the head, and be able himself to know with certitude in what consists his grandeur, his wealth, and his strengths?
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Yes, I do believe this would be a great idea. An impossible idea however. Too many things change from one moment to the next to know the exact numbers of everything. Not only thta but in a way too much information becomes useless. It is always important to account for everyone, but not too this extent. Too much time would go into getting exact numbers instead of actually fixing things and doing the thinsg that need to be done.
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Quite the noble gesture, and the only true way to do that is if every tiny district somehow lived independently from every other one. But as we know, we live in a giant country, so it we sacrifice the ability to know every little interest or statistic. The impossibility if this makes the statement pointless. An omniscient president or king? Sounds like god if you ask me. Which I'm not saying is an impossibility, just at our mortal levels.
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This reminds me of the stock market failure in 2010. the numbers were crunched by machines are were done quickly and efficiently. The problem was when humans get involved, they cannot calculate quickly enough. Alot has changed since 1686 and we do have the ability to gain substantial information in a short amount of time. But is that information useful, quantifiable? Just because they have all the numbers does not mean they have all the answers, or the questions to look at them through.
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I like the bee analogy in the article that introduced how structured hives are from a beekeepers perspective. It helped me understand the author James Scott's stance on the state. Clearly the state does have plans and is centralized in hierarchy. This highly structured, dominance and authoritarian attitudes have failed according to Scott's case against it.