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We haven’t solved the problem of governance. The End of History seemed close in the 1990s. But we’re back to being torn between the efficiency (and short-term stability) of authoritarian models against the flexibility (and long-term stability) of democratic ones. Until we find the model that just works, this competition is probably the best interim solution.
Even for countries, they absolutely can be efficient, it's just the efficiency is directed at stuff The Leader wants rather than stuff The People want.
I was talking about overall and general efficiency, authoritarian states are less economically, militarily and scientifically efficient than their freer counterparts. They may be effective at pursuing specific policy goals, and there are authoritarian states that have sufficient mass that they can achieve a lot in any given field, but they are usually more effective at giving the appearance of effectiveness that they are than actually achieving anything. Either way, effectiveness is not efficiency.
How can you enforce legislation without authority? But also, how can you foster innovation without liberty?
Well, the question of the specific make up of an entire governing model, complex as that would be, is an important question. I don’t think it’s the question that’s key here.
What I was referring to was we need a world that is without borders and doesn’t incentivize existential competition between different groups.
We’re smart enough to figure out how to all get along if we can just be better, than the way we’re made. Compulsive, animal natures.
And that’s why I think we should give ourselves trickier governing challenges, such as figuring out how to create this world without borders. You’re not always air quotes ready before you take the leap, whatever it is.
governance ≠ government
As long as extortion is involved, the various organs have no incentive to improve, and further more succumb to mission creep (1) to justify and expand their budget, necessitating further extortion.
1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mission%20creep
https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8pcb4xyCic
No, I don’t want anyone to have nuclear codes. And yes, I want someone to ensure randos aren’t building nukes.
> governance ≠ government
Sure, but to the degree we’ve made progress on the problem of governance, it’s been in proving the necessity of government. Anarchist collectives far well until someone comes to take their stuff; this is basically the warlord era of any civilisation.
I think there's a pretty strong argument that global military is close to a zero-sum game, but I agree that this doesn't mean there is a obvious alternative.
Last, I think it's pretty indisputable that there's been significant scope creep given that western government taxation & spending are now pushing 50% of GDP. If you look at the US, the federal government was 2% of GDP in 1920, and closer to 25% today. This is despite 10x in inflation adjusted GDP per capita. This means that more realistically, government is consuming/directing 100x more productive capacity per person.
It seems like hating the other side is the problem. But what if it’s not? What if it’s closer to what you say in that this is driven by some underlying genetics, and the hate appears later as a conscious rationalization of instinct?
I still believe we can be bigger than our biology and collectively we should. In some sense in part, the history of civilization is a kind of conquest of our culture over our biology.
Little aside, as there’s nowhere else to put it: when I originally made that comment, it wasn’t flagged and I didn’t have the flagged joke at the top of the comment.
But I immediately thought “this is going to get flagged,” so I put that little joke there and then sure enough it did get flagged sometime later.
What I wonder is: would it have still got flagged, without that little joke about it being flagged at the top?
I guess we’ll never know! at least in this version of the universe. Might have to hop over to another version in order to see the alternative. Hahaha! :)
The worlds population has been steadily growing for the past 10,000 years. The quality of life has mostly increased. We're figuring out more efficient ways to extract energy from the resources around us, including the sun.
We don't live in a post-scarcity world but we also don't live in a zero-sum world either.
You don't get to sweep many zero-aspects of life that are zero-sum, by calling it a fallacy, under the rug.
Many scenarios in life are game-theoretical with tradeoffs, where deviation from the greater sum results in higher rewards for individual actors. Until you solve it, you don't get to say "ItS noT ZeRo Sum!!11"
Declaring life as a zero-sum game doesn't make it so.
I didn't just declare life as a positive sum game, I gave some basic counter examples to your claim that life is a zero sum game.
> Many scenarios in life are game-theoretical with tradeoffs, where deviation from the greater sum results in higher rewards for individual actors ...
This is a separate phenomena. It sounds like you're alluding to the Prisoner's Dilemma problem [0]. Notably, many formulations of the Prisoner's Dilemma problem are not zero-sum [1].
I never said game theoretic ideas don't apply nor did I claim that individual rewards could inhibit global reward, I specifically addressed your claim about it being zero sum.
I think the modern day equivalent is libre/free/open source. I encourage everyone to support libre/free/open source software, hardware and data.
You need force, I just don’t think you need borders anymore.
Also, in terms of "force", many FOSS licenses have reciprocity or even viral terms associated with them. Violations of that agreement can have legal consequences for organizations.
I like your point about FOSS tho. I'll think about that. My current idea is that FOSS is good for utilities, or things you can plug in, but for full blown applications like my BrowserBox^0 is, or Andris Rienmann's EmailEngine^1, it's not so great.
Tho, 'slow moving target' seems a good heuristic worth considering. Thank you! :)