- The new shopping malls are indoor amusement parks.
- How does any of this reflect the theory of disruptive innovation?
- American Dream Meadowlands markets itself as a hybrid of mall and family entertainment center.
- The evolution of organized crime in the USA fits a similar pattern.
- The development of Las Vegas follows a similar pattern as above.
- How did Prohibition reflect a Protestant ethic?
- The Catholic world is more likely to tolerate special times and spaces.
Unfortunately, Bali is overflowing with tourists and garbage.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bali-travel-tips-advice-wish-i-had-kept-waiting-2020-1
There are unique places in the world.
Global tourism is destroying these places.
Should tourism be banned?
This raises an even more provocative question.
Is tourism obsolete?
More specifically, is global tourism going to be replaced by new shopping malls?
The shopping malls of the past sold things in the suburbs.
The new shopping malls sell experiences to city dwellers.
Like indoor skiing.
And water parks.
The new shopping malls are indoor amusement parks.
The American Dream mall of New Jersey has all of this and more.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/arts/american-dream-mall-opening.html
It's all very corporate and sterile.
This stands in stark contrast with New Jersey's infamously dangerous yet addictive amusement park, Action Park.
["Class Action Park: The World's Most Dangerous Amusement Park", 2019, trailer]
How does any of this reflect the theory of disruptive innovation?
The theory postulates that a cheaper, inferior, marginal product finds a niche on the fringes, improves over time and then displaces the established market.There is one important point this theory that is often missed.
Disruptive innovation is not just when a cheap fringe product improves and sweeps aside an incumbent product.
Rather, it is when an entirely different market blows away the mainstream market.
For example, short-term home rentals like Airbnb are now displacing the hotel industry.
But short-term rentals were never the low-end of the hotel industry.
Rather, short-term rentals were an entirely different market with a distinct clientele (frugal hipster vacationers) from that of the hotel industry (lucrative business travel).
Likewise, smartphones have displaced landline telephones.
Smartphones are usually understood as telephones that are more advanced (hence the term "smartphone").
In some sense, this is true.
This is a case of "sustaining innovation", when a mainstream product improves.
Technologically, basic cellphones were an advancement over landline phones, and smartphones were an advancement over basic cellphones.
This is how ordinary people experienced the personal technology revolution.
But in terms of disruptive innovation, a "smartphone" might be better understood as a small, portable, cheap computer which has turned telephony into just another app.
That is, the smartphone is a whole different kind of technological category (portable computer) that slew another technological category (portable telephony).
In a way, one can think of the smartphone as a kind of hybrid of two categories -- telephones and computers.
It might be useful to keep an eye out for such hybrids that might be harbingers of change.
American Dream Meadowlands markets itself as a hybrid of mall and family entertainment center.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream_MeadowlandsAmerican Dream Meadowlands (ADM) is a retail and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States, that will have over 450 stores.[4] The first and second of four opening stages occurred on October 25, 2019, and on December 5, 2019.[5][6] The remaining opening stages will take place in early 2020.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_entertainment_center
A family entertainment center (or centre), often abbreviated FEC in the entertainment industry[1] (also known as an indoor amusement park or indoor theme park), is a small amusement park marketed towards families with small children to teenagers, and often entirely indoors or associated with a larger operation such as a theme park. They usually cater to "sub-regional markets of larger metropolitan areas."[1] FECs are generally small compared to full-scale amusement parks, with fewer attractions, a lower per-person per-hour cost to consumers than a traditional amusement park, and not usually major tourist attractions, but sustained by an area customer base. Many are locally owned and operated, although there are a number of chains and franchises in the field.[1] FECs are sometimes called family amusement centers, play zones, family fun centers, or simply fun centers. Some non-traditional FECs, called urban entertainment centers (UECs), with more customized and branded attractions and retail outlets, are associated with major entertainment companies and may be tourist destinations.American Dream Meadowland would not represent a disruption of malls by amusement parks.
Suburban malls are being disrupted by online shopping.
Rather, American Dream Meadowland might represent a disruption of amusement parks by a new kind of mall.
If, in the dead of winter, New Yorkers can take a 20 minute bus ride to an indoor water park, what might this do to tourism to Florida?
Instead of going to Disneyland, people will go to the mall.
Here we have the developmental pattern of the amusement park.
- Amusement parks were once pretty crude small-time operations.
- Amusement parks became corporate and went upscale (sustaining evolution).
- Amusement parks are being displace by malls (disruptive revolution).
The evolution of organized crime in the USA fits a similar pattern.
- The mafia in Italy was once a local phenomena.
- The mafia in the USA became corporate.
- The mafia has been displaced by corporations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia#Clan_hierarchy
The boss of a clan is typically elected by the rank-and-file soldiers (though violent successions do happen). Due to the small size of most Sicilian clans, the boss of a clan has intimate contact with all members, and doesn't receive much in the way of privileges or rewards as he would in larger organizations (such as the larger Five Families of New York).[130] His tenure is also frequently short: elections are yearly, and he might be deposed sooner for misconduct or incompetence.
The consigliere ("counselor") of the clan is also elected on a yearly basis. One of his jobs is to supervise the actions of the boss and his immediate underlings, particularly in financial matters (e.g. preventing embezzlement).[132] He also serves as an impartial adviser to the boss and mediator in internal disputes. To fulfill this role, the consigliere must be impartial, devoid of conflict of interest and ambition.In the USA, the mafia has a corporate form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commission_(mafia)
The Commission is the governing body of the American Mafia, formed in 1931 by Charles "Lucky" Luciano following the Castellammarese War.[1] The Commission replaced the capo di tutti capi ("boss of all bosses") title, held by Salvatore Maranzano before his murder, with a ruling committee that consists of the bosses of the Five Families of New York City, as well as the bosses of the Chicago Outfit and the Buffalo crime family. The purpose of the Commission was to oversee all Mafia activities in the United States and serve to mediate conflicts between families.The American mafia is also multi-ethnic.
The Commission allowed Jewish mobsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, Dutch Schultz, and Abner "Longie" Zwillman to work alongside them and participate in some meetings.In the past couple of generations, the mafia-as-corporation in the USA itself has been displaced by corporations and the government.
Major sources of revenue for organized crime such as alcohol, gambling and pornography have gone corporate and are carefully regulated by the state.
If prostitution is legalized in the USA and carefully regulated, it would be close to a death blow to the remnants of the American mafia.
The mafia in the USA did not deal in narcotics, but one finds a similar pattern of displacement of organized crime by corporations.
The drug trade with Mexico is largely in marijuana and methamphetamemes.
Today, in the USA, marijuana is becoming legalized and America grows its own.
In terms of narcotics, Americans have switched over to opioids that are made in America.
(Another "bonus" of this development is that meth keeps users awake for days, during which time they commit robberies, whereas opioids knock people out.)
The development of Las Vegas follows a similar pattern as above.
- The saloon was a crude, local escape from reality.
- Las Vegas became a mega-saloon created by the mafia-as-corporation.
- Las Vegas has been taken over by transnational entertainment corporations.
Prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933.
At the commencement of Prohibition, the USA could have been described as a nation of alcoholics.
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/
By 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year – three times as much as we drink today – and alcohol abuse (primarily by men) was wreaking havoc on the lives of many, particularly in an age when women had few legal rights and were utterly dependent on their husbands for sustenance and support.To some degree, Prohibition was not just aimed at banning alcohol, but at destroying the tavern or saloon.
It would take the emergence of a new organization, the Anti-Saloon League, for the drys' dream to enter the realm of the possible.
The Anti-Saloon League
The ASL, under the shrewd and ruthless leadership of Wayne Wheeler, became the most successful single issue lobbying organization in American history, willing to form alliances with any and all constituencies that shared its sole goal: a constitutional amendment that would ban the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol. They united with Democrats and Republicans, Progressives, Populists, and suffragists, the Ku Klux Klan and the NAACP, the International Workers of the World, and many of America's most powerful industrialists including Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and Andrew Carnegie – all of whom lent support to the ASL's increasingly effective campaign.For one thing, saloons were feared because immigrant men would gather there and talk about politics and -- just maybe -- violent revolution.
The saloon was also a kind of "alternate reality" of sorts, a genuinely dangerous space in which almost anything could happen.
This was the appeal.
The saloon was an escape from the new, harsh reality of industrialization.
Working men, who were once independent farmers and tradesmen, now labored at the bottom of a corporate hierarchy.
Las Vegas represents an entire city as a mega-saloon.
Las Vegas as a vacation destination was the vision of the feared gangster Bugsy Siegel.
There is not so much as a single plaque on a wall to commemorate what Siegel did for Nevada.
[The Godfather part 2, 1974, "That kid's name was Mo Green"]
Today, Las Vegas has become Disney-fied.
["Casino", 1995, end scene]
["The Cooler", 2003, Shangri-La scene]
How did Prohibition reflect a Protestant ethic?
The attitudes toward life of southern and northern Europe diverge along the lines of credulity.The Mediterranean Sea has hosted major urban civilizations that have lasted for thousands of years.
The general attitude in older cultures is a blasé "been there, seen it, done it".
Like an old couple who have had many children, they don't get carried away with enthusiasm, and they tend to just accept things.
Subsequently, Catholicism in southern Europe absorbs all sorts of pre-Christian elements (for example, daily religious festivals that predate Christianity).
Historically, northern Europe consisted of poor freezing villagers worshiping the war god Wotan.
In northern Europe, Christianity was a revolution that swept aside everything prior to it (this is also what Arabs say about Islam).
In a sense, the rise and establishment of Protestantism in northern Europe is an expression of that piety and credulity.
There were hints of Protestantism as far back as the Middle Ages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldensians
It did not really catch on and was easily repressed.
Like any smart monopoly, the Church later recreated something like the Waldensians in order to co-opt dissent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franciscans
Sworn to poverty, the Franciscans were a major source of revenue for the Church.
Half the Franciscans were dedicated to a life of poverty, while the other half were committed to the Church hierarchy and its revenues.
Protestantism eventually did catch on -- in northern Europe.
In southern Europe at the time, there were hints of Protestant ideas.
For example, many of Leonardo da Vinci's ideas seemed to resonate with Protestantism.
But Leonardo would never get too excited about religion or openly challenge the Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_life_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci#Philosophy_and_religion
And so, while the Renaissance in northern Europe involved a rebirth of Christianity, in southern Europe it was merely the rebirth of Greek-inspired art.
Of course, in both northern and southern Europe, the old barbaric impulses still persisted despite the hold of Christianity.
In Catholic southern Europe, they were channeled into things like bullfighting (a holdover from the Roman coliseum).
In Protestant northern Europe, they were severely repressed.
When repressed aggressive drives did emerge in northern Europe, they were explosive and were channeled into religious and ideological fanaticism (e.g., the Thirty Years War, German fascism).
The Catholic world is more likely to tolerate special times and spaces.
For example, in Italy and Spain, almost every day is dedicated to a saint and is marked by a strange festival of some sort.In Catholic countries, there is a brief period each year in which social prohibitions are cast aside.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival
Likewise, the Catholic view of the world broadly sees the world as sinful.
In this profane world, a special holy space is to be carved out as a contemplative retreat.
In some sense, the modern university is the inheritor of this mission.
Importantly, however, the university can germinate and propagate challenges to the social order and the Church.
Modeled after a peaceful, holy space, the university can be disruptive.
In contrast to the Catholic monastic ideal, the Protestant ethic calls for the transformation and purification of a corrupt world.
This has become the mission of the American university.
It is speculated that this mission came from the philanthropic foundations that now fund universities.
This would explain the student radicalism of the 1960s.
There were always disgruntled intellectuals in universities.
But only since the 1960s did outspoken scholars become public in their desire to change the world.
This was supposedly the influence of the foundations.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/04/what-money-can-buy-profiles-larissa-macfarquhar
There are a couple of problems with this argument.
First, as the sociologist Todd Gitlin has asserted, since the 1970s, university activists have turned inward.
The university is now a surrogate republic as intellectuals have turned on each other and detached themselves from society.
Second, throughout American history, there was always a desire to transform the world, to turn a wilderness into a garden.
In the case of Las Vegas, however, it is not religion or academia that tamed and pasteurized Las Vegas, despite that city's depredations on Americans.
The transformative force homogenizing the world today and erasing special places is the multinational corporation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotopia_(space)
