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At a small enough level, you can maintain standards of conduct that are civil and fair. Once you reach a certain size, you lose the cohesion and accountability

At a small enough level, you can maintain standards of conduct that are civil and fair. Once you reach a certain size, you lose the cohesion and accountability that makes someone feel like they need to be civil. Maybe part of solving that problem is making everyone part of a group where they are accountable and then making that group accountable to a larger group and so on until the largest group is accountable to society as a whole. Some organized crime groups work this way as a way of controlling the incidence of violence, but the bonds between the members is stronger, in some sense than the bonds between casual acquaintances in the groups we form on a day-to-day basis. I was thinking about how Facebook and YouTube are delisting and otherwise punishing creators of “fake news” and while it certainly seems a way of punishing and silencing unpopular thoughts and opinions, I do wonder whether a tightly controlled Facebook is the solution to society’s ills. I see people on Twitter being defamed for their speech or actions and I wonder if that is where we start to get our accountability back at a societal level? Where else do we have a group where everyone can be held accountable?

jamesb93 7y ago
You mean like a government?
- partisan 7y ago
  Not like a government. Unless you mean to make unpopular speech illegal. What I am referring to is a group that makes people accountable for behavior that is legal by the definition of the law, but is otherwise considered anti-social and should be discouraged through shaming or loss of status.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    That group already exists, it's called "everyone," and their past efforts all Twitter harassment.
    - partisan 7y ago
      “Everyone” is too large of a group. And way too anonymous. The group would be one in which you value your membership and the opinion of others. In the past, it would have been a church, a social club, or in a small town, the town itself.
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      The original comment starts with "At a small enough level". It seems tautological that "everyone" wouldn't meet this level.
    - jackconnor 7y ago
      "At a small enough level", though you didn't seem to read the actual comment before you spit out this statement.
  - lootsauce 7y ago
    I think the concept you're reaching for is mob-rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy
la6470 7y ago
Education and increasing level of consciousness and awareness is the answer to this. A society with a higher level of compassion will have a lesser need for this. This question had been answered thousands of years ago.
mistermann 7y ago
> At a small enough level, you can maintain standards of conduct that are civil and fair. Once you reach a certain size, you lose the cohesion and accountability that makes someone feel like they need to be civil. Maybe part of solving that problem is making everyone part of a group where they are accountable and then making that group accountable to a larger group and so on until the largest group is accountable to society as a whole. Japan seems to be a place that has largely accomplished this. It's a slightly different topic, but this short video outlines four reasons social cohesion is breaking down in first world nations, and a few of the ways in which Japan (at 4:55) is distinctly different: Trump’s not the problem. He’s a symbol of 4 bigger issues. | Ian Bremmer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hESLPB3FiyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hESLPB3FiyY Another link that seems relevant to the topic: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/what-ive-been-reading-143.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/wh... > Patrick Bergemann, Judge Thy Neighbor: Denunciations in the Spanish Inquisition, Romanov Russia, and Nazi Germany. A very specific, useful, and interesting account of actual denunciation practices during the above-mentioned episodes. During the Inquisition, there was general immunity given to most denouncers, you can imagine the resulting incentives. This book is becoming more relevant than it ought to be. It's a shame reasonable perspectives rarely appear in the mainstream media, I often wonder if that is accidental.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  >It's a shame reasonable perspectives rarely appear in the mainstream media... Problem is, what's "reasonable" is completely different to a lot of people. FOX News is "reasonable" to some people, CNN is "reasonable" to others, and still others swear by the BBC. (And then you have that pitifully small group of people who watch CSPAN, and might actually be argued to be the most "reasonable" in the classic sense of the word.) BTW, Japan's social cohesion is falling apart just like everyone else'. So even your initial point is a bit suspect. (Unless you feel things like masses of old people dying alone, unwanted and even undiscovered is a sign of great social cohesion. But even if you do hold such a belief, a contemplative individual would likely not be faulted for disagreeing.) In a modern world, in modern societies, social cohesion just tends to fall apart. Modern societies are set up to be convenient, and when the efficiencies offered by these conveniences exceed the benefits offered by social cohesion, people, understandably, choose convenience. It's really just human nature. I don't know how we get around it, I just know that it manifests itself all over the globe. As political strife in the EU and US, as strongman leadership in places like Russia and the Philippines, and as some rather horrible social norms that are developing in places like Japan.
NotAnEconomist 7y ago
> Maybe part of solving that problem is making everyone part of a group where they are accountable and then making that group accountable to a larger group and so on until the largest group is accountable to society as a whole. > [...] > Where else do we have a group where everyone can be held accountable? Churches. They have their problems, but when you hear conservatives lament the breakdown in organized religion, what they're upset about is the breakdown in that system of tiered social pressures and expectations. I don't know how to reinvent that in a more egalitarian way -- or any way that avoids the problems organized religion (and plenty of other large organizations) have had.
AngryData 7y ago
We need more community events, but politicians like to pretend like having some festival is the end of the world and the worst possible wastage of money and employers like to pretend getting vacation time so you can enjoy those events is some ridiculous notion to even entertain.
ljm 7y ago
I've typically been in support of moderating speech, but it's an easy thing to support when I'm in the large majority for whom it favours. At the same time this is only to a point: burning books to silence an opposition, for example, is no good no matter whether that book is Mein Kampf or Harry Potter. It's harder to apply with social media: deleting the account or the post doesn't delete the person or their audience. In fact, the Streisand effect might even serve to radicalise other people as their controversial statements are broadcasted to a much wider audience to attract that precious ad revenue. In the UK we have a so-called candidate for the UKIP part who is only serving to gain more notoriety (and therefore fame) as someone who considers talking about whether or not they'd rape someone a way of 'saying it like it is'. For every person who reads about this and becomes outraged about how this person can even be considered a representative of the UK in EU Parliament, there will be just as many who read it and celebrate the man when they had never previously heard of him. I had completely dismissed this so-called Sargon of Akkad for a long time as being irrelevant, until the media made him relevant. People are still going to be sharing that stuff even when the accounts are banned. There'll be memes and quotes in images and other groups popping up in their wake. I have no idea how you solve this now we are ultimately connected on a global scale.

jamesb93 7y ago

You mean like a government?

partisan 7y ago
Not like a government. Unless you mean to make unpopular speech illegal. What I am referring to is a group that makes people accountable for behavior that is legal by the definition of the law, but is otherwise considered anti-social and should be discouraged through shaming or loss of status.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  That group already exists, it's called "everyone," and their past efforts all Twitter harassment.
  - partisan 7y ago
    “Everyone” is too large of a group. And way too anonymous. The group would be one in which you value your membership and the opinion of others. In the past, it would have been a church, a social club, or in a small town, the town itself.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    The original comment starts with "At a small enough level". It seems tautological that "everyone" wouldn't meet this level.
  - jackconnor 7y ago
    "At a small enough level", though you didn't seem to read the actual comment before you spit out this statement.
- lootsauce 7y ago
  I think the concept you're reaching for is mob-rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy

la6470 7y ago

Education and increasing level of consciousness and awareness is the answer to this. A society with a higher level of compassion will have a lesser need for this. This question had been answered thousands of years ago.

mistermann 7y ago

> At a small enough level, you can maintain standards of conduct that are civil and fair. Once you reach a certain size, you lose the cohesion and accountability that makes someone feel like they need to be civil. Maybe part of solving that problem is making everyone part of a group where they are accountable and then making that group accountable to a larger group and so on until the largest group is accountable to society as a whole. Japan seems to be a place that has largely accomplished this. It's a slightly different topic, but this short video outlines four reasons social cohesion is breaking down in first world nations, and a few of the ways in which Japan (at 4:55) is distinctly different: Trump’s not the problem. He’s a symbol of 4 bigger issues. | Ian Bremmer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hESLPB3FiyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hESLPB3FiyY Another link that seems relevant to the topic: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/what-ive-been-reading-143.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/wh... > Patrick Bergemann, Judge Thy Neighbor: Denunciations in the Spanish Inquisition, Romanov Russia, and Nazi Germany. A very specific, useful, and interesting account of actual denunciation practices during the above-mentioned episodes. During the Inquisition, there was general immunity given to most denouncers, you can imagine the resulting incentives. This book is becoming more relevant than it ought to be. It's a shame reasonable perspectives rarely appear in the mainstream media, I often wonder if that is accidental.

bilbo0s 7y ago
>It's a shame reasonable perspectives rarely appear in the mainstream media... Problem is, what's "reasonable" is completely different to a lot of people. FOX News is "reasonable" to some people, CNN is "reasonable" to others, and still others swear by the BBC. (And then you have that pitifully small group of people who watch CSPAN, and might actually be argued to be the most "reasonable" in the classic sense of the word.) BTW, Japan's social cohesion is falling apart just like everyone else'. So even your initial point is a bit suspect. (Unless you feel things like masses of old people dying alone, unwanted and even undiscovered is a sign of great social cohesion. But even if you do hold such a belief, a contemplative individual would likely not be faulted for disagreeing.) In a modern world, in modern societies, social cohesion just tends to fall apart. Modern societies are set up to be convenient, and when the efficiencies offered by these conveniences exceed the benefits offered by social cohesion, people, understandably, choose convenience. It's really just human nature. I don't know how we get around it, I just know that it manifests itself all over the globe. As political strife in the EU and US, as strongman leadership in places like Russia and the Philippines, and as some rather horrible social norms that are developing in places like Japan.

NotAnEconomist 7y ago

> Maybe part of solving that problem is making everyone part of a group where they are accountable and then making that group accountable to a larger group and so on until the largest group is accountable to society as a whole. > [...] > Where else do we have a group where everyone can be held accountable? Churches. They have their problems, but when you hear conservatives lament the breakdown in organized religion, what they're upset about is the breakdown in that system of tiered social pressures and expectations. I don't know how to reinvent that in a more egalitarian way -- or any way that avoids the problems organized religion (and plenty of other large organizations) have had.

AngryData 7y ago

We need more community events, but politicians like to pretend like having some festival is the end of the world and the worst possible wastage of money and employers like to pretend getting vacation time so you can enjoy those events is some ridiculous notion to even entertain.

ljm 7y ago

I've typically been in support of moderating speech, but it's an easy thing to support when I'm in the large majority for whom it favours. At the same time this is only to a point: burning books to silence an opposition, for example, is no good no matter whether that book is Mein Kampf or Harry Potter. It's harder to apply with social media: deleting the account or the post doesn't delete the person or their audience. In fact, the Streisand effect might even serve to radicalise other people as their controversial statements are broadcasted to a much wider audience to attract that precious ad revenue. In the UK we have a so-called candidate for the UKIP part who is only serving to gain more notoriety (and therefore fame) as someone who considers talking about whether or not they'd rape someone a way of 'saying it like it is'. For every person who reads about this and becomes outraged about how this person can even be considered a representative of the UK in EU Parliament, there will be just as many who read it and celebrate the man when they had never previously heard of him. I had completely dismissed this so-called Sargon of Akkad for a long time as being irrelevant, until the media made him relevant. People are still going to be sharing that stuff even when the accounts are banned. There'll be memes and quotes in images and other groups popping up in their wake. I have no idea how you solve this now we are ultimately connected on a global scale.