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Comment by libraryofbabel | Hacker News Reader

As an ex historian I love how this famous 350yo work of political philosophy is just sitting at #7 on HN with absolutely no context on why it was submitted.

The great debate of political philosophy coming out of the 17th century was between Hobbes (anarchy is horrible, humans aren’t nice to each other, best to give up your freedoms to a strong sovereign/state for protection) and Locke (liberty is best, people are reasonable, limit government). I will say that like most of us I probably side more with Locke but as a pessimist about human nature I find Hobbes’s argument fascinating too.

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While Hobbes is dark, he is giving an interesting explanation of how political power actually work, so that even when people are not nice, they can act in a civilized way.I only read a small parts of it and some summaries, from what I understand the crux of the argument doesn't necesserily force democracy or autocracy(although he seem skeptical of democracy) rather it explains the concept of sovereignity, even in a democracy. I once quoted Leviathan in a course assignment to explain why Gandhi's method is effective :)

Niceness is the wrong lens to use for acting in a civilised way. Game theory generally recommends cooperation; in practical real-world situations most of the games we play are ones where the best situation comes from negotiation. The issue is more the truly enormous number of actors who either have remarkably short short time preferences, an unreasonable tolerance for risk or who are just unpredictable. That is one of the central themes of the whole liberal project, of course. How to minimise the amount of force required to contain irrational actors.

An easy example is that the scariest people to run in to in a dark ally are the drugged up types; because the problem is they don't have the ability to make decisions while considering the pros- and cons- over a couple of months and their normal behaviour isn't predictive of what they are about to do.

Someone who is truly horrible and comfortable with the idea of barbarism is actually pretty easy to get along with if they're happy to work with long term goals and are predictable in their deployment of violence. Their social place is probably in the military or police force. Or dentistry if they want more consensual torment.

> An easy example is that the scariest people to run in to in a dark ally are the drugged up types; because the problem is they don't have the ability to make decisions while considering the pros- and cons- over a couple of months and their normal behaviour isn't predictive of what they are about to do.

One can argue they can’t help it. But another strategy is to mimic that to gain an upper hand. Let’s imagine someone doesn’t want folks going down their street, they could pretend to act randomly and crazy. Even seasoned barbarians would stay away from that alley, not to even mention dentists ;-)

I'd argue this is too expansive of a view. It's a debate specifically coming out of the English Civil War, and specifically focusing on the tension between Parliament and the Monarchy. If you read Clarendon it becomes extremely obvious. Hobbes (like Clarendon) took the royalist view defending the king, and Locke set for an argument for parliament.

Some of it doesn't translate super well into modern times. For example, Locke barely touches upon judiciary. The modern notion of separation of powers came (I believe) from Montesquieu.

I will say that Hobbes gives a far more comprehensive argument than Locke does. And some of Locke's details, including his anthropology of the origin of commonwealths, is demonstrably false.

Either way, glad to see Leviathan here!

Oh for sure, both thinkers were products of the English Civil War and its aftermath (and see my comment below about reading Quentin Skinner for all the context on Hobbes). I’d add that Locke (who was writing later than Hobbes) was all wrapped up in the 1688 “Glorious Revolution” too.

But some works transcend the specific details of their historical origins and authorship and contain ideas that echo down the centuries. Locke’s ideas were instrumental in founding the United States and feed into much of modern liberalism. And I can read Hobbes here today in the 21st century and still find the pessimistic core of his book powerful and relevant, even while ignoring much of the book because it’s full of the parochial concerns of 17th century England. That was really what I was getting at: not “this is the exact meaning of these works in the 17th century”, but “here is the tension of ideas these books bequeathed to us.”

Beautiful comment. Thanks for sharing. "Homo homini lupus" comes to mind, used by Locke in De Cive ("on the citizen") [1]. Cive, root Civis, is where the word civilization comes from.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_homini_lupus

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Cive

While I always wanted to like Locke's arguments more, they always felt the weaker of the two, and frequently seemed to need to plug god into the gaps.

Found your comment mightily insightful, so may as well ask:

Can you recommend a handful of similar “historical” works that you’d consider a must-read (or simply just darn interesting).

Thanks!

This is just a very casual, even pop cultural characterization of how these two thinkers are commonly seen. I would expect people to have come across more substantive characterizations during an early high school history class, but perhaps I'm overgeneralizing my experience.

In any case, if you're looking for an approachable yet good book, I recommend reading Edward Feser's "Locke"[0]. The focus is obviously on Locke, but you can't really appreciate Locke without also getting into some Hobbes, which the books does.

[0] https://a.co/d/02c3fLFZ

GP here, I agree with you, my characterizations were both pretty casual to the point of flippancy. I could write y’all a deeper essay on this stuff, but hey, I have LLMs to herd, the 17th century wasn’t my period anyway, and there is already a massive amount of insightful writing about these two thinkers to dive into.

I would say Hobbes in particular is a complex and difficult and frankly eccentric thinker; don’t make the mistake of believing you understand him; he is weird. If you really want to grok the guy in the context of his culture and historical moment, you should just read Quentin Skinner. That’s hardcore intellectual history though; for the basics I’d just go for the clear and brief and informative Oxford Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction.

To continue this discussion and to tie it into the original link, worth looking at this YouTube Video where "Jon Pike interviews Quentin Skinner about Thomas Hobbes' masterpiece Leviathan"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PO3GB-RhA4

Machiavelli. Not just the Prince but his other works. He reads remarkably modern. There are many "Machiavelli Readers" that will provide a curated selection.

Cicero and Plato.

Is there a middle ground argument? Something along the lines of humans are horrible to one another unless there is a social state that provides reasonable protection, at which point we can afford to be nice?

Oh totally. I actually don’t like Locke’s position much either, he’s too libertarian for my taste (I would like the state to provide healthcare &c &c). But if I had to choose I’d choose Locke over Hobbes. Hobbes is… real dark.

Such elegance, or snobbery or at least some kind of beauty...

Using "&" literally in 2026 smells of wonder, well done, thanks!

Do you do it sometimes in regular English words too or just in &c? Please give more examples (if you have any).

This will be a great day, starting of like this: a written play with words; i like it!

I'm intrigued.

Is there something wrong with "&" in 2026?

Some kind of meta meaning?

Nothing wrong at all, quite the opposite.

I like it a lot, and it makes me happy to see someone using the ligature of "e t"[0] ("&") not only as "and" but also as it's original "et" in the abbreviation "etc".

To me it reads like someone playing with words in a fun way, which is not that common in my parts of the internet

I was trying to express appreciation.

---

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)

&c as an abbreviation for etc was very common historically. For example, look at the OP. It would not normally be used for an et that is not the latin et (and), as in et cetera. Its use for an 'and' in latin carried over to english, for some reason, and that usage has stayed with us.

It’s hard to see but & is literally an e and a t conjoined. Not a ligature exactly

It is easier to see in other fonts, but yes, I am aware of that. However as far as I am aware, it was never used to join an e and t that were not the latin et.

Read Graeber & Wengrow

The question is not what state humans arein, but what state other humans would be when interacting with them. In other words, are other humans nice to me? I like it when they are nice to me. In return, I will also be nice to them.

Economist magazine editor once said in an interview that Republican/conservative are open regulations for businesses and closed on people. Labour/democrats are tight on business and more welcoming to the people.

Economist editorial attempts to be open on both sides.

Ah, the old Economist joke!

1. Open regulations for businnesses

2. Open regulations for people

3. ?????

4. Profit!

Like "most of us"? America is uniquely anti-regulation

Just because I prefer Locke to Hobbes if you forced me to choose doesn't mean I'm some sort of anti-regulation libertarian. Far from it. But if you actually read Hobbes you will see that:

* He thinks everyone should be compelled to worship in the state-sanctioned religion

* Censorship of publications, teaching, etc. is necessary because ideas can be dangerous.

* Separation of powers (e.g. between executive, legislature, judiciary) is bad; he wants a single unitary sovereign with unlimited power.

* The sovereign is above the law

* Resisting a tyrannical sovereign is bad

...and that's why I'd pick Locke over Hobbes. And I think most of us would too.

The idea that the USA is anti regulation is profoundly ignorant.

Well. Most people are against pouring mercury into the drinking water. Which humans were doing before regulation. So, seems like regulation is needed.

Wouldn't it make more sense to want less government and more freedom if one doesn't trust people?

If you don't trust individuals, you're going to need an institution (or private security) to protect you from them. Police, laws, etc.

But those public institutions only give power to individuals. Bad actors are gonna orbit to those positions and abuse them as much as they can.

Private security is a different thing, as the power given is just wages in exchange for a good service, so individuals seeking power wouldn't want to "just have a job" at those.

No, because people exist outside of government.

No amount of government is going to help you there.

Some amount of government helps to some degree, otherwise government and anarchy should be indistinguishable, which is obviously not the case.

What we have now, wherever you are in the world, is, in my approximation, merely a slightly more evolved version of anarchy.

We are only three missed meals away from the marauders coming for your dog.

Don't confuse anarchy with barbarism. Anarchy gives you the linux kernel while barbarism is being sacrificed to your neighbours gods when it doesn't rain in a long time.

Imagine you grow up in a pedo cult and one day black vans drive on the ranch with FBI agents.

Government bad is such an insufferable American take and I scream every time I hear it.

The black vans with federal agents that are snatching people from the streets and killing those that are opposing them pacifically surely scream of government good.

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