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Taking a look at some other "social systems that are being tested at the moment", I don't think your claim that Australia is "coming together" in comparison to

• chadcmulligan 6y ago
  There's always disputes, but no ones dying or being thrown out of their homes, people are being looked after. I have been amazed at the compassion being shown by the political class on both sides. iirc there was a lot of extra care taken in the NT for indigenous people because they seem extra susceptible to covid 19 just as a counter example. I didn't know that about boundary st - assumed it was just a boundary, seems it should be changed. Its great this conversation has started, like most I'm unaware of these problems, and its good to get them out in the air, if the fix is renaming a street - then who cares, rename the street.
  • eindiran 6y ago
    > There's always disputes, but no ones dying or being thrown out of their homes, people are being looked after. This is an underrated point; I think your larger message, that cooperation isn't dying, is likely true. I think I have the tendency to focus on the problems that are growing (or continue to exist) without noticing areas where there is progress and my comment was a reflection of that. And I agree that it is good that we have started to have these conversations. But I also think there is something to be said for the point the OP was making: human systems simply don't function as well at scale. Or stated more precisely: humans are better at being prosocial in smaller groups than they are in bigger groups. There are a lot of reasons why this might be the case (see for example [0], [1], [2], [3]). As we scale our society to be more and more global, I think we are going to need to reckon with this at some point. [0] Not having enough interactions for tit-for-tat to function as a strategy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_iterated_prisoner's_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_itera...) [1] Inability of humans to hit the requirements for a sense of community in very large social networks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_community#Membership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_community#Membership) [2] Not having enough interaction between individuals to encourage reciprocity and cause feelings of guilt (or shame) when an individual is muddying the commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
    • chadcmulligan 6y ago
      They are indeed significant points. I feel a lot of government success comes from trust, as in all interactions, if you can't trust your government then things go bad, then they just become people trying to take stuff from you. Maybe there is some limit where there's too many people for that to occur. I feel one of the necessary conditions is the population needs a cohesive belief system (at least in certain areas). For example, if you have a large population that doesn't believe in science but in the invisible hand of god, and a large population that is scientific humanist then I don't think any system will cope with that - there is very little common ground. If everyone is educated and believes in a rational universe then it makes things a lot easier.