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skin in the game. there is something incredibly honorable about it. Can anyone picture BoJo, Trump or Biden jumping off a chopper in Overtheristan killing loca

skin in the game. there is something incredibly honorable about it. Can anyone picture BoJo, Trump or Biden jumping off a chopper in Overtheristan killing locals? In the West we use the term "who live by the sword shall die by the sword" (Matthew) but only as a warning. I think it illustrates the disconnect between these worlds. What is warning in one place/religion is a _promise_ in the other. My wife (Japanese) would laugh "at the cowardice" displayed by somebody who questions the right to revenge (an eye for an eye) or hesitates taking their life to save the honor of their family, etc ... This sounds alien to Westerners if not terrifying to those in power to have an honor based system. It is why media in all German speaking countries use the word "clan" only in a racist sense reserved for specific minorities and aimed to criminalize those who live in these older forms of social groups (with perhaps hundreds of people)[0] While most are quick to denounce an evangelical missionary[1] hopping of the boat in the Andaman sea to "convert the local heathens", it's much easier to turn a blind eye at every-day injustice against alternative forms of social groups (Roma in Europe come to mind, refugees, or indeed very large families of South Easter European decent that would automatically be labelled terrorists or criminals, Bosnians, Kosovo-Albanias, etc). [0] a clan in Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna etc is never somebody "good" e.g. the strong family bond here is caricaturized as an organized criminal and only mentioned in relation to drug or human trafficking. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-usa-murder-idUSKCN1NQ0QT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-usa-murder-idUSKCN1...

snikeris 6y ago
I think the doctrine of an eye for an eye is alive and well in the West. It seems to be a part of the human condition. However, rejecting it isn't cowardice. It's spiritual growth.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  > However, rejecting it isn't cowardice. It's spiritual growth. sure is. it's also what gives us the feeling we have a right (if not duty if you add religion or moral arguments) to forcefully integrate these societies (for the purpose of taxation / corvée / slavery) the way we have done it since thousands of years. Oldest example perhaps China's expanding kingdoms creating hill tribes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_...
- bingbong70 6y ago
  Taleb's point was systems become fragile when participants (especially if powerful) have little to no skin in the game. It is a form of cowardice to immune oneself from accountability but also worse, it introduces large (and usually growing) systemic risks that cannot be avoided.
kingsuper20 6y ago
> Can anyone picture BoJo, Trump or Biden jumping off a chopper in Overtheristan killing locals? Of course not, but given their age and the extreme-high risk aversion of modern people, yer not going to see that anytime soon. Not that many people have three sons (the third going into the military) in any case. Nothing new here. I just assume that a sclerotic ruling class is simply a sign of late-stage empire. Eventually you'll see an interregnum followed by one of the other models for large scale social integration.
sjg007 6y ago
The notion of a social or family honor has its own psychological problems. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/minority-report/201406/asian-honor-and-suicide https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/minority-report/2014...
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  of course it does! Everything has. so does our system of sending the old people to an assisted living facility to live out the last couple of years in "dignity" while crapping their pants and not having visitors (except on every 1st Sunday of the month between 15:00-17:00 which is the time when everyone asks why they are still around because they are so demented and not part of our lives that we wouldn't know what to talk with them anyway). ^^ there is always a way to paint another society as absolutely evil. it's the type of propaganda that makes us feel good about ourselves since the time we got rid of those useless pagans ("coming over here" ... "with their inlaid jewelry, and shit burial traditions" ...)
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Even honor based societies can have criminal elements, the Yakuza being an example. This isn't just a Japanese thing, there are even honor based criminal clans such as the mafia.
    - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
      let's rephrase what you're saying as so it's bulletproof: All criminal societies have honor based structures but not all honor based structures are criminal. What German language speakers refer to as "clans" can have 600 or even 1000 people. That's the size of a small town anywhere. Chances that there are people who end up in crime from such a huge sample is obvious. Add to it that the tight-knit structure of that community will be associated to that individual is a weakness in the eyes of another society where a family doesn't have more than max 20 or 30 people. (they won't say "this person is not part of the family", they may only say that person did bad which is not regular behavior for us etc) The loss of honor & face due to being then associated to the criminal elements in their group (in the eyes of others) is almost impossible for them to defend against. Much easier to say I do not know my neighbor who I only went to kindergarden with (but otherwise do not consider as part of my tribe)

snikeris 6y ago

I think the doctrine of an eye for an eye is alive and well in the West. It seems to be a part of the human condition. However, rejecting it isn't cowardice. It's spiritual growth.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
> However, rejecting it isn't cowardice. It's spiritual growth. sure is. it's also what gives us the feeling we have a right (if not duty if you add religion or moral arguments) to forcefully integrate these societies (for the purpose of taxation / corvée / slavery) the way we have done it since thousands of years. Oldest example perhaps China's expanding kingdoms creating hill tribes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_...
bingbong70 6y ago
Taleb's point was systems become fragile when participants (especially if powerful) have little to no skin in the game. It is a form of cowardice to immune oneself from accountability but also worse, it introduces large (and usually growing) systemic risks that cannot be avoided.

kingsuper20 6y ago

> Can anyone picture BoJo, Trump or Biden jumping off a chopper in Overtheristan killing locals? Of course not, but given their age and the extreme-high risk aversion of modern people, yer not going to see that anytime soon. Not that many people have three sons (the third going into the military) in any case. Nothing new here. I just assume that a sclerotic ruling class is simply a sign of late-stage empire. Eventually you'll see an interregnum followed by one of the other models for large scale social integration.

sjg007 6y ago

The notion of a social or family honor has its own psychological problems. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/minority-report/201406/asian-honor-and-suicide https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/minority-report/2014...

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
of course it does! Everything has. so does our system of sending the old people to an assisted living facility to live out the last couple of years in "dignity" while crapping their pants and not having visitors (except on every 1st Sunday of the month between 15:00-17:00 which is the time when everyone asks why they are still around because they are so demented and not part of our lives that we wouldn't know what to talk with them anyway). ^^ there is always a way to paint another society as absolutely evil. it's the type of propaganda that makes us feel good about ourselves since the time we got rid of those useless pagans ("coming over here" ... "with their inlaid jewelry, and shit burial traditions" ...)
- sjg007 6y ago
  Even honor based societies can have criminal elements, the Yakuza being an example. This isn't just a Japanese thing, there are even honor based criminal clans such as the mafia.
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    let's rephrase what you're saying as so it's bulletproof: All criminal societies have honor based structures but not all honor based structures are criminal. What German language speakers refer to as "clans" can have 600 or even 1000 people. That's the size of a small town anywhere. Chances that there are people who end up in crime from such a huge sample is obvious. Add to it that the tight-knit structure of that community will be associated to that individual is a weakness in the eyes of another society where a family doesn't have more than max 20 or 30 people. (they won't say "this person is not part of the family", they may only say that person did bad which is not regular behavior for us etc) The loss of honor & face due to being then associated to the criminal elements in their group (in the eyes of others) is almost impossible for them to defend against. Much easier to say I do not know my neighbor who I only went to kindergarden with (but otherwise do not consider as part of my tribe)