I’ll try. For analysis of the structural properties that make up modern society, we need to not only look at what exists in the present but give the same amount of importance to historical instances that would contribute to our structural analysis.
The overarching theme of this post seems to be connecting two different existential threats and comparing which one is worse as if they somehow can be aligned on the same axis and compared that way. Tyrants have been the normal throughout most of history. I think, not confident at all, that this is due to the size of civilization that the tyrannical paradigm has been challenged. Tyranny has a single point of failure, and that has long been the argument against it for very good reasons. In the historical past, the rules of tyrants were small, a little village here, a little town there, that’s it. We have many tyrants, so one tyrant fails, we still have other good tyrants to rely on. People can migrate, but migration is limited to the technologies, animals, wheels and ships. We are at 8 billions right now.
When we analyze a society, we can’t just look at its government structure. It says very little about the society. It only says anything about the processes of the enforcement institutions for the society they govern. They can be removed and replaced like they’ve done. Enslavement happens not directly because of a choice in the governing structure design but because of how the power struggle inside the government gets abused. Of course, any design can also implement fail-safe against such systemic failure. These don’t really make their way into public discourse unfortunately but are crucial if you want to align your own understanding with reality. Whether those fail-safe actually work is a different story. There are many levels of interactions but we aren’t really equipped to talk about them because we lack background education and the type of research think tanks can provide. They do this for a living.
I brought up aboriginal tribes as a form of enslavement. They enslave their members through fear of the unknown, just like how most types of tribal groups or cults control their members. They fear the unknown, so there is no agency lost, thus no need for soothing except when they encounter unknowns in real life occasions. The soothing scenario happens when the majority of your population knows about the outside world, thus you can only enforce their enslavement through fear of violence. That’s what North Korea has done. Their society is too big to self-contain. A lot of human potential has been sacrificed to make things more easily manageable. Governments don’t really do much. It’s just a small aspect of society as a whole. So the human potential lost covers a much larger area than the gains of ease of management. I’m sure I’m missing information regarding North Korea since we hear very little about it, so I am definitely not very confident in my statements. Actual human agencies and potentials lost should probably left to the people who do this for a living. They don’t seem to publicize this type of information due to geopolitical reasons. Think tanks don’t think people need to know. They just need to know that they are bad. End of story.
Public discourse focus on topics that are based on popularity, a completely statistical metric, more aligned with geopolitical agenda than anything else practical. This doesn’t mean we have enough information regarding these topics to discuss them productively. Most people already know it’s pointless to argue with others about religion solely because we know so little. Why doesn’t this consensus apply to other areas of interests?
I’ll try. For analysis of the structural properties that make up modern society, we need to not only look at what exists in the present but give the same amount of importance to historical instances that would contribute to our structural analysis.
The overarching theme of this post seems to be connecting two different existential threats and comparing which one is worse as if they somehow can be aligned on the same axis and compared that way. Tyrants have been the normal throughout most of history. I think, not confident at all, that this is due to the size of civilization that the tyrannical paradigm has been challenged. Tyranny has a single point of failure, and that has long been the argument against it for very good reasons. In the historical past, the rules of tyrants were small, a little village here, a little town there, that’s it. We have many tyrants, so one tyrant fails, we still have other good tyrants to rely on. People can migrate, but migration is limited to the technologies, animals, wheels and ships. We are at 8 billions right now.
When we analyze a society, we can’t just look at its government structure. It says very little about the society. It only says anything about the processes of the enforcement institutions for the society they govern. They can be removed and replaced like they’ve done. Enslavement happens not directly because of a choice in the governing structure design but because of how the power struggle inside the government gets abused. Of course, any design can also implement fail-safe against such systemic failure. These don’t really make their way into public discourse unfortunately but are crucial if you want to align your own understanding with reality. Whether those fail-safe actually work is a different story. There are many levels of interactions but we aren’t really equipped to talk about them because we lack background education and the type of research think tanks can provide. They do this for a living.
I brought up aboriginal tribes as a form of enslavement. They enslave their members through fear of the unknown, just like how most types of tribal groups or cults control their members. They fear the unknown, so there is no agency lost, thus no need for soothing except when they encounter unknowns in real life occasions. The soothing scenario happens when the majority of your population knows about the outside world, thus you can only enforce their enslavement through fear of violence. That’s what North Korea has done. Their society is too big to self-contain. A lot of human potential has been sacrificed to make things more easily manageable. Governments don’t really do much. It’s just a small aspect of society as a whole. So the human potential lost covers a much larger area than the gains of ease of management. I’m sure I’m missing information regarding North Korea since we hear very little about it, so I am definitely not very confident in my statements. Actual human agencies and potentials lost should probably left to the people who do this for a living. They don’t seem to publicize this type of information due to geopolitical reasons. Think tanks don’t think people need to know. They just need to know that they are bad. End of story.
Public discourse focus on topics that are based on popularity, a completely statistical metric, more aligned with geopolitical agenda than anything else practical. This doesn’t mean we have enough information regarding these topics to discuss them productively. Most people already know it’s pointless to argue with others about religion solely because we know so little. Why doesn’t this consensus apply to other areas of interests?