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Excuse me for the dismissive tone, but this looks a dog chasing his tail. Does anyone REALLY believe that "things don't work"™ because the systems put in place

by gtsop 5y ago

Excuse me for the dismissive tone, but this looks a dog chasing his tail. Does anyone REALLY believe that "things don't work"™ because the systems put in place are flawed? No sir, the systems in place work flawlessly for those who put them there, enjoy the benefits of those systems and make damn sure these systems keep benefiting them no matter what. As long as one doesn't acknowledge this very simple fact, they have no hope of drastically changing society, not even conceptualize a solution IMHO

mempko 5y ago
Bingo. Those in power by definition can change the system, but they don't. Which probably means it's working pretty well for that cohort. But one thing you are missing is that those in power are just like us. Deeply flawed people and what they build is flawed for their purposes too. Global warming is a great example. They have absolutely no solution to it and it will decimate not just them, but everyone.
- Invictus0 5y ago
  If the people in power are always 60+ years old with access to lots of money and airplanes, then no, global warming will not decimate them. They can just hopscotch around to wherever the climate is fine. Global warming really only affects people who lack mobility.
  - mempko 5y ago
    Money and airplanes only really work when there is a highly organized stable society. I think it's a mistake to assume that will be always the case at the extremes.
CapmCrackaWaka 5y ago
> No sir, the systems in place work flawlessly for those who put them there Well, if you define "work" as benefiting as many people as possible, then no they don't work. That's obviously the point the author was making.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  Phrasing it as "things don't work" misleads people into thinking that it's just a matter of reforming a couple of regulations. Instead this a world-wide, centuries-old conflict for power and wealth. The kind of thing that people live and die for.
- badrequest 5y ago
  Defining it this way indicates a misunderstanding of the purpose of these systems.
HappyKasper 5y ago
I think the acknowledgement is implicit in this piece - current structures have allowed this "power capture" and need to be improved. The point the author makes is that blockchain has very obvious avenues for the same power capture and that for this reason, it's not a better option than the difficult work of improving existing and well-explored systems of power/political order.
practice9 5y ago
I agree with your point. Systems like governments get "too fat" and there are many issues with holding them accountable or at least creating more transparency around their actions. Calling for more regulation by an entity that needs to be regulated itself is a modern paradox.
munificent 5y ago
> Does anyone REALLY believe that "things don't work"™ because the systems put in place are flawed? I do. When society produces large-scale negative outcomes, I believe there are roughly four causes: 1. Because human groups are complex, interactive, iterative dynamical systems, the system as a whole may have emergent properties radically different from the intentions of any of its individual participants. No one in a crowd crush is deliberately commiting evil, yet the result is dead bodies. Designing large scale human systems with the desired emergent properties is extremely hard, like controlling the weather while also being a raindrop. 2. Since culture lives inside human brains and gets enshrined in physical artifacts, large scale systems change extremely slowly. Even when we (for some definition of "we") know better, there is a large lag before we can see the change. 3. Even well-intentioned people are fallible and make mistakes. Some level of power variation is useful, so you will inevitably sometimes have people in power who screw things up and whose position magnifies the negative consequences. This is particularly true when the consequences are long-term and hard to predict like leaded gasoline or CFCs. 4. Some people are selfish and willing to harm others for their benefit. A few are outright sociopaths. Some fraction of these will end up in positions of power. Conventional wisdom is that these are in increasing order of importance and that most of the bad we see comes from megalomaniacal billionaires. I don't like those dudes either, but my belief is that this is actually in descending order. I think most of our problems are because the systems we're part of are just huge and unpredictable with emergent effects no one anticipated or wants. You can't really blame the problem all on evil billionaires because the production of billionaires is itself a property of the system.
- rustmachine 5y ago
  I agree with this, well put. Are people evil, or are our structures and systems so complex that we are unable to find best solutions? Honestly, I think evil is a byproduct of the complexity of our society. There are no quick fixes. Everything is complex and very difficult. Trying to do large-scale good might very easily turn out to have very bad consequences. Its much easier to just be a gear in the machine, but the its the logic of the machine that ends up dictating the outcome - and when the machine is societies with 300 million people, its very hard to predict what that logic will be. Most likely it wont be good.
- 5y ago
rustmachine 5y ago
I dont know. I think you underestimate how difficult it is to make big organisations work well. As soon as any organisation grows large enough (say, a large municipality), it becomes an incredibly difficult task to run it perfectly. Everyone trying their best, but still people from office A have no idea what people in office B does, bosses make the wrong decisions because they dont have access to correct knowlegde and are overworked, employees stop taking responsibility because their bosses are overworked and the decicions making structures are opaque and feel futile. None of this is evil or bad faith. Its simply very hard problems that are hard to solve individually. We try to organize or build systems to fix these things, but its a very hard problem. I'm not denying that there are powerful people doing evil things to benefit themselves, and that this is huge part of why everything is bad. Im just saying we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that a lot of our troubles come down to our problems being extremely complex and human nature doesnt interact that great with that kind of complexity. Our biggest problem i think is not nefariouss badguys, but the immense scale of our issues and our inability to tackle them at the proper level.

by gtsop 5y ago

mempko 5y ago

Bingo. Those in power by definition can change the system, but they don't. Which probably means it's working pretty well for that cohort. But one thing you are missing is that those in power are just like us. Deeply flawed people and what they build is flawed for their purposes too. Global warming is a great example. They have absolutely no solution to it and it will decimate not just them, but everyone.

Invictus0 5y ago
If the people in power are always 60+ years old with access to lots of money and airplanes, then no, global warming will not decimate them. They can just hopscotch around to wherever the climate is fine. Global warming really only affects people who lack mobility.
- mempko 5y ago
  Money and airplanes only really work when there is a highly organized stable society. I think it's a mistake to assume that will be always the case at the extremes.

CapmCrackaWaka 5y ago

> No sir, the systems in place work flawlessly for those who put them there Well, if you define "work" as benefiting as many people as possible, then no they don't work. That's obviously the point the author was making.

goodpoint 5y ago
Phrasing it as "things don't work" misleads people into thinking that it's just a matter of reforming a couple of regulations. Instead this a world-wide, centuries-old conflict for power and wealth. The kind of thing that people live and die for.
badrequest 5y ago
Defining it this way indicates a misunderstanding of the purpose of these systems.

HappyKasper 5y ago

I think the acknowledgement is implicit in this piece - current structures have allowed this "power capture" and need to be improved. The point the author makes is that blockchain has very obvious avenues for the same power capture and that for this reason, it's not a better option than the difficult work of improving existing and well-explored systems of power/political order.

practice9 5y ago

I agree with your point. Systems like governments get "too fat" and there are many issues with holding them accountable or at least creating more transparency around their actions. Calling for more regulation by an entity that needs to be regulated itself is a modern paradox.

munificent 5y ago

> Does anyone REALLY believe that "things don't work"™ because the systems put in place are flawed? I do. When society produces large-scale negative outcomes, I believe there are roughly four causes: 1. Because human groups are complex, interactive, iterative dynamical systems, the system as a whole may have emergent properties radically different from the intentions of any of its individual participants. No one in a crowd crush is deliberately commiting evil, yet the result is dead bodies. Designing large scale human systems with the desired emergent properties is extremely hard, like controlling the weather while also being a raindrop. 2. Since culture lives inside human brains and gets enshrined in physical artifacts, large scale systems change extremely slowly. Even when we (for some definition of "we") know better, there is a large lag before we can see the change. 3. Even well-intentioned people are fallible and make mistakes. Some level of power variation is useful, so you will inevitably sometimes have people in power who screw things up and whose position magnifies the negative consequences. This is particularly true when the consequences are long-term and hard to predict like leaded gasoline or CFCs. 4. Some people are selfish and willing to harm others for their benefit. A few are outright sociopaths. Some fraction of these will end up in positions of power. Conventional wisdom is that these are in increasing order of importance and that most of the bad we see comes from megalomaniacal billionaires. I don't like those dudes either, but my belief is that this is actually in descending order. I think most of our problems are because the systems we're part of are just huge and unpredictable with emergent effects no one anticipated or wants. You can't really blame the problem all on evil billionaires because the production of billionaires is itself a property of the system.

rustmachine 5y ago
I agree with this, well put. Are people evil, or are our structures and systems so complex that we are unable to find best solutions? Honestly, I think evil is a byproduct of the complexity of our society. There are no quick fixes. Everything is complex and very difficult. Trying to do large-scale good might very easily turn out to have very bad consequences. Its much easier to just be a gear in the machine, but the its the logic of the machine that ends up dictating the outcome - and when the machine is societies with 300 million people, its very hard to predict what that logic will be. Most likely it wont be good.
5y ago

rustmachine 5y ago

I dont know. I think you underestimate how difficult it is to make big organisations work well. As soon as any organisation grows large enough (say, a large municipality), it becomes an incredibly difficult task to run it perfectly. Everyone trying their best, but still people from office A have no idea what people in office B does, bosses make the wrong decisions because they dont have access to correct knowlegde and are overworked, employees stop taking responsibility because their bosses are overworked and the decicions making structures are opaque and feel futile. None of this is evil or bad faith. Its simply very hard problems that are hard to solve individually. We try to organize or build systems to fix these things, but its a very hard problem. I'm not denying that there are powerful people doing evil things to benefit themselves, and that this is huge part of why everything is bad. Im just saying we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that a lot of our troubles come down to our problems being extremely complex and human nature doesnt interact that great with that kind of complexity. Our biggest problem i think is not nefariouss badguys, but the immense scale of our issues and our inability to tackle them at the proper level.