QWERTY Keyboard & The Entrenched Habits of Society
The reason the letters were placed as they were (rather than in alphabetical
order like the early typewriters) was to solve a problem that existed at that
time. Some people wound up typing so fast that the mechanical rods attached to
the keys would stick to each other.
To resolve this, the QWERTY keyboard was developed. It placed keys in such
a manner that the most used letters were spaced out so that the rods were
less likely to clash into each other when typing. This keyboard layout
became standard with the popularity of the Remington typewriter which was
the first to use it, and all other manufacturers fell in line.
So here we are, more than 140 years later, using a keyboard layout designed
to fix a problem that no longer exists.
http://gizmodo.com/why-we-still-use-qwerty-keyboards-even-though-theyre-a-1643855077
The only reason we're still tying our fingers in knots more than a century
later is simply because QWERTY got here first. Since then, several more
"scientifically" designed keyboard layouts have been introduced. ...And yet,
QWERTY shows little sign of going anywhere, all because of the "first mover"
advantage -- everybody has already grown up knowing only one way to type, and
nobody wants to completely relearn how to type for the possibility of slightly
increased speed and comfort, at least until they get carpal
tunnel...
http://www.cracked.com/article_19151_5-bad-ideas-humanity-sticking-with-out-habit.html
In this sense, the nation-state is like the QWERTY keyboard. It is not
inherently the best tool for the job (in this case the governing of large
complex capitalist societies) but because it gained an early dominance over
other potential options it has become embedded as the way things are done. The
more people own QWERTY keyboards, the more sense it makes for new keyboards to
be made in the QWERTY layout because that is what everyone is familiar with.
In a similar way, the more states claim legitimacy through their appeal to
nationalism the more other states will do so as well as they will fear losing
their own power and legitimacy to nationalist movements.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/dylan-hewitt-page/technology-and-nation-state-governing-social-complexity
