Good luck coalescing that in any meaningful level of resistance. History shows that leaders haven’t been very kind to revolutions, and the success rate for such movements aren’t necessarily high given the technical limitations.
I say this only because I’m seeing a slow tendency towards an absolution of leader-replacement strategies and sentiments.
When the proles have nothing to lose but their chains, they get restless :-/
Is this empirically true? I am not an expert, but seems to me that many revolutions are caused not by consistent suffering—which makes people adjust to the “new normal”—but rather by situations where the quality of life increases a bit—which gives people expectations of improvement—and then either fails to increase further, or even falls back a bit. That is when people explode.
A child doesn’t throw a tantrum because she never had a chocolate, but she will if you give her one piece and then take away the remaining ones.
seems to me that many revolutions are caused not by consistent suffering
The issue is not the level of suffering, the issue is what do you have to lose. What’s the downside to burning the whole system to the ground? If not much, well, why not?
That is when people explode
Middle class doesn’t explode. Arguably that’s the reason why revolutions (and popular uprisings) in the West have become much more rare than, say, a couple of hundred years ago.
The American revolution seems to have been a pretty middle-class affair. The Czech(oslovakian) “Velvet Revolution” and the Estonian “Singing Revolution” too, I think. [EDITED to add:] In so far as there can be said to be a middle class in a communist state.
Yeah, Eastern Europe / Russia is an interesting case. First, as you mention, it’s unclear to what degree we can speak of the middle class there during the Soviet times. Second, some “revolutions” there were velvet primarily because the previous power structures essentially imploded leaving vacuum in their place—there was no one to fight. However not all of them were and the notable post-Soviet power struggle in the Ukraine (the “orange revolution”) was protracted and somewhat violent.
The issue is not the level of suffering, the issue is what do you have to lose.
More precisely, it is what you believe you have to lose. And humans seems to have a cognitive bias that they take all advantages of the current situation for granted, if they existed at least for a decade.
So when people see more options, they are going to be like: “Worst case, we fail and everything stays like it is now. Best case, everything improves. We just have to try.” Then they sometimes get surprised, for example when millions of them starve to death, learning too late that they actually had something to lose.
In some sense, Brexit or Trump are revolutions converted by the mechanism of democracy into mere dramatic elections. People participating at them seem to have the “we have nothing to lose” mentality. I am not saying they are going to lose something as a consequence, only that the possibility of such outcome certainly exists. I wouldn’t bother trying to convince them about that, though.
Resistance of those without resources against those with amassed resources. We can call them rich vs. poor, leaders vs. followers, advantaged vs. disadvantaged. the advantaged groups tend to be characteristically small, the disadvantaged large.
Revolutions haven’t been very kind to leaders, too—that’s the point. When the proles have nothing to lose but their chains, they get restless :-/
Restlessness is useless when it is condensed and exploited to empower those chaining them. For example, rebellion is an easily bought commercial product, a socially/tribally recognized garb you can wear. You’d be hard-pressed more to look the part of a revolutionary than to actually do anything that could potentially defy the oppressive regime you might be a part of. There are other examples, which leads me to my next point.
...absolution?
It would be in the best interest for leaders to optimize for a situation where rebellion cannot ever arise, that is the single threat any self-interested leader with the goal of continuing their reign needs to worry about. Whether it involves mass surveillance, economic manipulation, or simply despotic control is largely irrelevant, the idea behind them is what counts. Now when you bring up the subject of technology, any smart leader with a stake in their reign time will immediately seize any opportunity to extend it. Set a situation up to create technology that necessarily mitigates the potential for rebellion to arise, and you get to rule longer.
This is a theoretical scenario. It is a scary one, and the prevalence of conspiracy theories arising from such a theory simply plays to biases founded in fear. And of course, with bias comes the inevitable rationalist backlash to such idea. But I’m not interested in this political discourse, I just want to highlight something.
The scenario establishes an optimization process. Optimization for control. It is always more advantageous for a leader to worry more about their reign and extend it than to be benevolent, a sort of tragedy of the commons for leaders. The natural in-system solution for this optimization problem is to eliminate all potential sources of competition. The out-system solution for this optimization problem is mutual cooperation and control-sharing to meet certain needs and goals.
There currently exists no out-system incentive that I am currently aware of. Rationality doesn’t count, since it still leads to in-system outcomes (benevolent leaders).
EDIT: I just thought of an ironic situation. The current solution to the tragedy of the commons most prevalent is through the use of government regulation. This is only a Band-Aid, since you get a recursion issue of figuring out who’s gonna govern the government.
And when it’s not? Consider Ukraine. Or if you want to go a bit further in time the whole collapse of the USSR and its satellites.
Outcompeted by economic superpowers. Purge people all you want, if there are advantages to being integrated into the world economic system, the people who explicitly leave will suffer the consequences. China did not choose such a fate, but neither is it rebelling.
I don’t see why. It is advantageous for a leader to have satisfied and so complacent subjects. Benevolence can be a good tool.
Benevolence is expensive. You will always have an advantage in paying your direct subordinates (generals, bankers, policy-makers, etc) rather than the bottom rung of the economic ladder. If you endorse those who cannot keep you in power, those that would normally keep you in power will simply choose a different leader (who’s probably going to endorse them more than you are). Of course, your subordinates are inevitably dealing with the exact same problem, and chances are they too will optimize by supporting those who can keep them in power. There is no in-system incentive to be benevolent. You could argue a traditional republic tries to circumvent this empowering those on the bottom to work better (which has no other choice but to improve living conditions), but the amount of uncertainty for the leader increases, and leaders in this system do not enjoy extended times of reign. To optimize to fix this solution, you absolve rebellious sentiment.
Convince your working populace that they are happy (whether they’re happy or not), and your rebellion problem is gone. There is, therefore, still no in-system incentive to be benevolent (this is just a Band-Aid), the true incentive is to get rid of uncertainty as to the loyalty of your subordinates.
Side-note: analysis of the human mind scares me in a way. To be able to know precisely how to manipulate the human mind makes this goal much easier to attain. For example, take any data analytics firm that sell their services for marketing purposes. They can collaborate with social media companies such as facebook (which currently has over 1.7 billion active monthly users as data points, though perhaps more since this is old data), where you freely give away your personal information, and get a detailed understanding of population clusters in regions with access to such services.
It’s called a survival instinct.
Good luck coalescing that in any meaningful level of resistance. History shows that leaders haven’t been very kind to revolutions, and the success rate for such movements aren’t necessarily high given the technical limitations.
I say this only because I’m seeing a slow tendency towards an absolution of leader-replacement strategies and sentiments.
Resistance on whose part to what?
Revolutions haven’t been very kind to leaders, too—that’s the point. When the proles have nothing to lose but their chains, they get restless :-/
...absolution?
Is this empirically true? I am not an expert, but seems to me that many revolutions are caused not by consistent suffering—which makes people adjust to the “new normal”—but rather by situations where the quality of life increases a bit—which gives people expectations of improvement—and then either fails to increase further, or even falls back a bit. That is when people explode.
A child doesn’t throw a tantrum because she never had a chocolate, but she will if you give her one piece and then take away the remaining ones.
The issue is not the level of suffering, the issue is what do you have to lose. What’s the downside to burning the whole system to the ground? If not much, well, why not?
Middle class doesn’t explode. Arguably that’s the reason why revolutions (and popular uprisings) in the West have become much more rare than, say, a couple of hundred years ago.
The American revolution seems to have been a pretty middle-class affair. The Czech(oslovakian) “Velvet Revolution” and the Estonian “Singing Revolution” too, I think. [EDITED to add:] In so far as there can be said to be a middle class in a communist state.
Yeah, Eastern Europe / Russia is an interesting case. First, as you mention, it’s unclear to what degree we can speak of the middle class there during the Soviet times. Second, some “revolutions” there were velvet primarily because the previous power structures essentially imploded leaving vacuum in their place—there was no one to fight. However not all of them were and the notable post-Soviet power struggle in the Ukraine (the “orange revolution”) was protracted and somewhat violent.
So… it’s complicated? X-)
More precisely, it is what you believe you have to lose. And humans seems to have a cognitive bias that they take all advantages of the current situation for granted, if they existed at least for a decade.
So when people see more options, they are going to be like: “Worst case, we fail and everything stays like it is now. Best case, everything improves. We just have to try.” Then they sometimes get surprised, for example when millions of them starve to death, learning too late that they actually had something to lose.
In some sense, Brexit or Trump are revolutions converted by the mechanism of democracy into mere dramatic elections. People participating at them seem to have the “we have nothing to lose” mentality. I am not saying they are going to lose something as a consequence, only that the possibility of such outcome certainly exists. I wouldn’t bother trying to convince them about that, though.
(Yes it does.)
Resistance of those without resources against those with amassed resources. We can call them rich vs. poor, leaders vs. followers, advantaged vs. disadvantaged. the advantaged groups tend to be characteristically small, the disadvantaged large.
Restlessness is useless when it is condensed and exploited to empower those chaining them. For example, rebellion is an easily bought commercial product, a socially/tribally recognized garb you can wear. You’d be hard-pressed more to look the part of a revolutionary than to actually do anything that could potentially defy the oppressive regime you might be a part of. There are other examples, which leads me to my next point.
It would be in the best interest for leaders to optimize for a situation where rebellion cannot ever arise, that is the single threat any self-interested leader with the goal of continuing their reign needs to worry about. Whether it involves mass surveillance, economic manipulation, or simply despotic control is largely irrelevant, the idea behind them is what counts. Now when you bring up the subject of technology, any smart leader with a stake in their reign time will immediately seize any opportunity to extend it. Set a situation up to create technology that necessarily mitigates the potential for rebellion to arise, and you get to rule longer.
This is a theoretical scenario. It is a scary one, and the prevalence of conspiracy theories arising from such a theory simply plays to biases founded in fear. And of course, with bias comes the inevitable rationalist backlash to such idea. But I’m not interested in this political discourse, I just want to highlight something.
The scenario establishes an optimization process. Optimization for control. It is always more advantageous for a leader to worry more about their reign and extend it than to be benevolent, a sort of tragedy of the commons for leaders. The natural in-system solution for this optimization problem is to eliminate all potential sources of competition. The out-system solution for this optimization problem is mutual cooperation and control-sharing to meet certain needs and goals.
There currently exists no out-system incentive that I am currently aware of. Rationality doesn’t count, since it still leads to in-system outcomes (benevolent leaders).
EDIT: I just thought of an ironic situation. The current solution to the tragedy of the commons most prevalent is through the use of government regulation. This is only a Band-Aid, since you get a recursion issue of figuring out who’s gonna govern the government.
And when it’s not? Consider Ukraine. Or if you want to go a bit further in time the whole collapse of the USSR and its satellites.
I don’t see why. It is advantageous for a leader to have satisfied and so complacent subjects. Benevolence can be a good tool.
Outcompeted by economic superpowers. Purge people all you want, if there are advantages to being integrated into the world economic system, the people who explicitly leave will suffer the consequences. China did not choose such a fate, but neither is it rebelling.
Benevolence is expensive. You will always have an advantage in paying your direct subordinates (generals, bankers, policy-makers, etc) rather than the bottom rung of the economic ladder. If you endorse those who cannot keep you in power, those that would normally keep you in power will simply choose a different leader (who’s probably going to endorse them more than you are). Of course, your subordinates are inevitably dealing with the exact same problem, and chances are they too will optimize by supporting those who can keep them in power. There is no in-system incentive to be benevolent. You could argue a traditional republic tries to circumvent this empowering those on the bottom to work better (which has no other choice but to improve living conditions), but the amount of uncertainty for the leader increases, and leaders in this system do not enjoy extended times of reign. To optimize to fix this solution, you absolve rebellious sentiment.
Convince your working populace that they are happy (whether they’re happy or not), and your rebellion problem is gone. There is, therefore, still no in-system incentive to be benevolent (this is just a Band-Aid), the true incentive is to get rid of uncertainty as to the loyalty of your subordinates.
Side-note: analysis of the human mind scares me in a way. To be able to know precisely how to manipulate the human mind makes this goal much easier to attain. For example, take any data analytics firm that sell their services for marketing purposes. They can collaborate with social media companies such as facebook (which currently has over 1.7 billion active monthly users as data points, though perhaps more since this is old data), where you freely give away your personal information, and get a detailed understanding of population clusters in regions with access to such services.