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Comment by the_arun | Hacker News Reader

I have these questions about Democracy & Politics. I am no expert & not intending to be sarcastic.

1. Do we have defined policies for clean Politics? I mean ethical/fair.

2. I believe, we teach democracy in college. Do we teach rules of politics (1)?

3. When a political party takes the office (white house in US), aren't they expected to represent people instead of their political party?

4. When people take oath in office wouldn't (3) come into play?

5. Shouldn't white house employees (Federal) work for ruling party - but they are govt officials instead of party workers?

6. When ruling party/govt breaks above rules what is the penalty/punishment?

Sorry, if this is out of context for the main topic, but these keep bugging me.

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It looks like you are asking people to have a lot of “good intentions”/hold high moral standard. What are the mechanisms given we are all greedy human?

Imagine 100% human are greedy - there will be hunger games & we get extinct in no time. Hence, don't we need some moral standard to survive in peace?

Imagine you've coded a little game played by bots in which all of them are greedy and they compete aggressively. How do you set up incentives so that they willingly cooperate, without changing their definitions in the code?

Pointing the bots to a higher "moral standard" will not work unless they are programmed to follow it. But you can't refactor humans, sadly

Yep, humans are not bots (no emotional properties). Moral standard applies to humans because of their EQ.

Now imagine that the bots can learn and can modify their behavior. And eventually through chaotic trials some of them learn that even a small gang can defeat / out-compete a large number of un-associated individuals -- and thus satisfy the greed of each individual gang member. And then they would learn that for a gang to hold its member should observe certain rules. And that those who don't must punished and/or expelled. Because otherwise the whole gang would break up. And so on. And so forth. That's how modern societies came to be. Not through "intelligent design". But though competition, trial and error, learning and adapting.

I don't think your assertion necessarily holds. There are several schools of philosophy that assert that selfishness is the highest moral standard. If I were selfish enough I should realize that being cooperative with my fellow man was the best way to get more for myself in life. Recognizing that the pie can be grown allows one to align their personal greed with the common good. I don't go to work every day out of the goodness of my heart (some perceived moral standard), but to provide a better life for me and my family.

Take for example all the technological progress of the modern era. Little of that would be possible if we didn't have massive, stable, cooperative societies. Any rational, selfish agent should recognize this and not resort to hunger games. This is also the reason capitalism seems generally more productive than communism. Instead of trying to fight or rewrite human nature, its more productive align incentives such that we can harness it.

Good argument! But logically doesn't line up. The sense of community itself is opposite of selfishness. If a person is selfish they don't think about community. Capitalism mixed with right amount of socialism (or vice versa) thrives! IMHO, being greedy for doing good to others & self (community) - is great! But greedy for only self growth at the cost of anything is dangerous & the success from it is short term. Then the person next to you doesn't think about any morale - thereby destroying the concept of community.

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