5 ms·

All states must inevitably collapse.

simonh 8y ago
There’s no law of the universe about this, other than the sun exploding and heat death. One of the plausible catastrophic end states for humanity is an ultra-stable technocratic totalitarian global state, enabled by pervasive super high tech surveillance and censorship. It’s one of the ‘great filter’ possibilities for why sentient beings never colonise the galaxy - they’re all trapped in bureaucratic self serving versions of 1984 where the state only exists to maintain the state. Democracies and other forms of goveenment are never stable, the only stable state is bureaucratic autocracy, and falling into one only ever has to happen once and you’re done. This is what China is building, and the model they are exporting to the world.
- outworlder 8y ago
  Can you expand on this or provide some source material for further reading? I find this a fascinating subject.
- bscphil 8y ago
  So basically Brazil (Terry Gilliam)?
- alazoral 8y ago
  I would disagree with your assertion there that bureaucracies are terminal. Historically, military dictatorships tend to overthrow bureaucracies, while democracies overthrow military dictatorships and bureaucracies subsume democracies. Each of these transitions can be understood thermodynamically; each transition results in a lower energy state for the problems facing them at the time: Bureaucracies lack military response time. Dictatorships lack economic stability. Democracies lack efficiency. Each of these are actually each model's strength, but over time becomes fatal.
  - simonh 8y ago
    I think that's arguable, but anyway a global totalitarian state with 100% communications channel surveillance linked to super-advanced AI analysis engines doesn't need a military. All they need is a detention force to send anyone with seditious tendencies or too low on their Citizenship Points[1] for organ harvesting[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

There’s no law of the universe about this, other than the sun exploding and heat death. One of the plausible catastrophic end states for humanity is an ultra-stable technocratic totalitarian global state, enabled by pervasive super high tech surveillance and censorship. It’s one of the ‘great filter’ possibilities for why sentient beings never colonise the galaxy - they’re all trapped in bureaucratic self serving versions of 1984 where the state only exists to maintain the state. Democracies and other forms of goveenment are never stable, the only stable state is bureaucratic autocracy, and falling into one only ever has to happen once and you’re done. This is what China is building, and the model they are exporting to the world.

outworlder 8y ago
Can you expand on this or provide some source material for further reading? I find this a fascinating subject.
bscphil 8y ago
So basically Brazil (Terry Gilliam)?
alazoral 8y ago
I would disagree with your assertion there that bureaucracies are terminal. Historically, military dictatorships tend to overthrow bureaucracies, while democracies overthrow military dictatorships and bureaucracies subsume democracies. Each of these transitions can be understood thermodynamically; each transition results in a lower energy state for the problems facing them at the time: Bureaucracies lack military response time. Dictatorships lack economic stability. Democracies lack efficiency. Each of these are actually each model's strength, but over time becomes fatal.
- simonh 8y ago
  I think that's arguable, but anyway a global totalitarian state with 100% communications channel surveillance linked to super-advanced AI analysis engines doesn't need a military. All they need is a detention force to send anyone with seditious tendencies or too low on their Citizenship Points[1] for organ harvesting[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...