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> Demonstrably how? Tens of thousands of years of human history. Feuding warlords, and slaves, rather than everyone acting together in unity. > What is a demo

> Demonstrably how? Tens of thousands of years of human history. Feuding warlords, and slaves, rather than everyone acting together in unity. > What is a demonstrably false fairy tale is that we don't act righteously when law enforcement is present. So asking what would happen in its absence seems irrelevant. Well, we don't have mass rape, looting, or murder. One really needs to compare scale. Democracy seems to be a horrible system, and indeed the worst system, except for all the others (paraphrasing Churchill). > Self-regulating organisations are possible, the only real condition is the removal of external incentives for those organisations to misbehave. You're missing scale. SMALL self-regulating organizations do very well. The key condition isn't just about removing external incentives, but also about scale. Once you're at some scale, you're guaranteed to have a few psychopaths who work to game the system to personal benefit. A key thing about small-scale is everyone can say "Adolf is a jerk. Let's swing clear of him." Large scale, he takes over Germany, and onto the world! Likewise, large-scale, you're missing social incentives. Small scale, I can say "I won't steal from you, because you'll think I'm a jerk." Large-scale, try leaving your wallet in the train in almost any major city for 10 minutes. Tribal culture was pretty good on isolated islands. It didn't go Lord of the Flies. That only happened at scale. I've seen largish organizations sustain this for maybe a half-decade or decade, but never longer. At some point, game-theoretical organizational models take over, and things never go back.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> Tens of thousands of years of human history. Feuding warlords, and slaves, rather than everyone acting together in unity. More generally: negative externalities / tragedy of the commons / prisoner's dilemma.
Mary-Jane 6y ago
> Tens of thousands of years of human history. Feuding warlords, and slaves, rather than everyone acting together in unity. ummm, both of your specific examples are actually examples of those with power abusing it.
- murgindrag 6y ago
  > ummm, both of your specific examples are actually examples of those with power abusing it Precisely. Those are examples of how, unless you place explicit constraints on people's ability to amass power and abuse it, people will amass power and abuse it. The whole history of progress in political systems could be oversimplified as a search for laws, structures, checks, and balances to prevent this from happening. In the absence of engineered ones, you revert into anarchy, which leads to individuals amassing power and abusing it. Things like Democratic Structures, the Magna Carta, and the US Constitution were steps forward to prevent that. Heck, the rigid hierarchy of Ancient Egypt did better than the anarchy which came before. As a primitive form of government, it was incredibly inequitable, but you had far less theft and violence than before. That invention -- explicit governance structures and codified laws -- even in that form, allowed modern civilization.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    > Those are examples of how, unless you place explicit constraints on people's ability to amass power and abuse it, people will amass power and abuse it. They will always do this? What is the source of this knowledge? And I ask that in the literal sense, not rhetorically.
    - julesnp 6y ago
      I would say it's the fact that despite humanity's initial state being anarchy, all over the world human society has developed along basically these same patterns.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    If someone is allowed to amass power to to abuse others, it is not anarchy. You seem to assume anarchy implies no rules, but fundamentally to ensure minimal rules the bare minimum is to shut down any attempt at aggression against others. An anarchist would argue, however, that protecting society against aggression does not require a top down state.
    - 6y ago

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

> Tens of thousands of years of human history. Feuding warlords, and slaves, rather than everyone acting together in unity. More generally: negative externalities / tragedy of the commons / prisoner's dilemma.

Mary-Jane 6y ago

> Tens of thousands of years of human history. Feuding warlords, and slaves, rather than everyone acting together in unity. ummm, both of your specific examples are actually examples of those with power abusing it.

murgindrag 6y ago
> ummm, both of your specific examples are actually examples of those with power abusing it Precisely. Those are examples of how, unless you place explicit constraints on people's ability to amass power and abuse it, people will amass power and abuse it. The whole history of progress in political systems could be oversimplified as a search for laws, structures, checks, and balances to prevent this from happening. In the absence of engineered ones, you revert into anarchy, which leads to individuals amassing power and abusing it. Things like Democratic Structures, the Magna Carta, and the US Constitution were steps forward to prevent that. Heck, the rigid hierarchy of Ancient Egypt did better than the anarchy which came before. As a primitive form of government, it was incredibly inequitable, but you had far less theft and violence than before. That invention -- explicit governance structures and codified laws -- even in that form, allowed modern civilization.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > Those are examples of how, unless you place explicit constraints on people's ability to amass power and abuse it, people will amass power and abuse it. They will always do this? What is the source of this knowledge? And I ask that in the literal sense, not rhetorically.
  - julesnp 6y ago
    I would say it's the fact that despite humanity's initial state being anarchy, all over the world human society has developed along basically these same patterns.
- vidarh 6y ago
  If someone is allowed to amass power to to abuse others, it is not anarchy. You seem to assume anarchy implies no rules, but fundamentally to ensure minimal rules the bare minimum is to shut down any attempt at aggression against others. An anarchist would argue, however, that protecting society against aggression does not require a top down state.
  - 6y ago