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Epsilon Theory: Things Fall Apart
- anm89 7y agoI really love this bit. It something that I've felt was true in observing the world views of people around me but never could think of an eloquent way to say. "How did we get here? We got soft. I don’t mean that in a macho sort of way. I don’t even mean that as a bad thing. I mean that, just like the Romans of Gibbon’s history and just like the Africans of Achebe’s novel and just like the mobsters of the Sopranos, we have long forgotten the horrors of literal war and why we constructed these cooperatively-oriented institutions in the first place. We are content instead to trust that the Peace of Ani or the Peace of the Five Families or the Pax Romana or the Pax Americana is a stable peace – a stable equilibrium – where we can all just focus on living our best lives and eking out a liiiiitle bit of relative advantage. We are content to become creatures of the flock, intently other-observing animals, consumed by concerns of relative positioning to graze on more grass than the sheep next to us. Besides, it’s so wearying to maintain the actual intent of the old institutions, to mean it when you swear an oath to a Constitution or a god or a chief, and not just see it as an empty ritual that must be observed before getting the keys to the car."