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Comment by ClumsyPilot | Hacker News Reader

'Let's go to macro scale: What's the better solution: 1000000 people each baking their own bread (1 loaf a day), or a giant company baking all the bread?'

The same argument advocates monopoly or central planning by government?

If not, you have to jistify where is centralised enough. Now, if we have a 20,000 different bakeries, is that actually centralised?

Decentralisation of plumbers doesnt mean everyone does his own plumbing, it means anyone willing to learn can become a plumber and there is no plumbing monopoly.

Also we should debate the actual subject, not debate it indirectly throufh analogie, it just introduces an extra step of inaccuracy and cultural baggage.

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I know you wanted to veer back to the topic, but just to add another example to the pile: the math on mass transit is just blindingly obvious. A cheap centralized transit system is wildly more efficient for moving people around than individual cars. And investments in it will "lift all boats" socioeconomically speaking.

But it is more about the problems than the methodology. Centralized/Cooperative methods are more appropriate to solving a complex problem for which you know the solution (building a house, mass transit, maintaining highways). Distributed/Competitive methodology is better for exploring a problem space (determining the most energy efficient house design, innovative bus or train engines, cost effective highway surfaces). If you use cooperative when you should be using competition, you get a cartel. If you use competition when you should be cooperating, you get extreme inefficiency and long delays (I don't think we have a word for when we force groups who should be cooperating to compete with each other for resources).

> I don't think we have a word for when we force groups who should be cooperating to compete with each other for resources

I agree in terms of forcing, but we have plenty of ways to describe the general idea of choosing this direction, typically in exchange for a (real or perceived) benefit, but almost always with the inefficiency/delay you mentioned:

homegrown

homemade

handmade

handcrafted

artisan

DIY

roll your own

> The same argument advocates monopoly or central planning by government?

My argument isn't "centralization is good no matter what".

My argument is "centralization is not inherently a bad thing that is to be overcome. Done correctly, as demonstrated by many existing systems in our society, it is a great way to make things our society needs work at scale in an efficient manner."

I think centralization is often the most efficient solution, the assumption being that the central authority has implemented the most efficient system. The problem though is the same as governments. Dictatorship is the most efficient way to run a country, people do as the dictator says there is no questioning it. All choices of the dictator are made and no waste is done in thinking or processing of the decision. The problem becomes that these centralization solutions almost always turn sour. The central authority (dictator) may have started off benevolent/perfect but either they eventually turn bad, successors turn bad, or the central authority becomes inefficient in new environmental conditions.

Decentralization like democracy introduces inefficiencies but at the same time provides safeguards against these conditions. The goal is to provide the minimum amount of inefficiencies while providing the maximum amount of safeguards.

> Decentralization like democracy introduces inefficiencies but at the same time provides safeguards against these conditions.

Most democracies are not purely decentralized systems, however. There is still a central government, the difference is how it obtains its ruling power.

Even the elections themselves are not de-centralized, as in "everyone run his own DIY election system and we'll see what sticks". There are central authorities for tallying votes, providing election sites, safeguarding and vetting the process, declaring rules, etc.

Which is a perfect example for how cenralized systems can be both efficient and safeguarded.

The long arc of human civilization absolutely points toward unification of society and government, not balkanization into independent city-states.

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