5 ms·

Yeah, it turbo sucks, but what matters is what we can actually do about it. Power hungry people are always going to seek power, and they're always going to be

Yeah, it turbo sucks, but what matters is what we can actually do about it. Power hungry people are always going to seek power, and they're always going to be better at it than people who aren't likewise driven. Democracy helps, but it still plainly falls under "Rules for Rulers" with extra keys. I wonder if the gamesmanship can't be addressed directly: elect a large body of "acceptable" candidates and randomly choose the ones that actually get power. This way, randomness dilutes the climbing incentive. Of course, one needs power to implement any kind of change... :>

moltke 5y ago
This is why intact culture, and a moral imperative, are far more important than ideology. It's why "spreading democracy" by destroying culture and people results in worse outcomes.
- lupire 5y ago
  what does "intact culture" mean?
  - Mezzie 5y ago
    I'd consider an intact culture to be one that's capable of transmitting its knowledge and traditions to the next generation, and one that permits some kind of social learning [1]: It should be possible for a child or novice in the culture to be able to figure out how they are expected to behave, consistent parameters should exist for interactions, etc. A broken culture in this case would be one which: - Lacks a next generation/dies out (e.g. the Shakers because of their disdain for sex) - There is a lack of agreement on foundational rules which make the culture impossible to enter, change, or expand (because the culture is crisis). Think managers giving you completely opposite instructions. One example would be say, attending the religious services of a friend/colleague. If the rules are clear and consistent and conveyed, it's possible to act in a respectful way. "This is how a Catholic wedding works." If you just have to guess what's offensive or what the taboos are, or you get contradicting answers, that's a broken culture. Even insular cultures need to teach children/new members, if they can't, they die. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_learning_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_learning_theory
mrtksn 5y ago
I'm not that pessimistic. If you notice, when structured properly, the previously blood shedding monarchs cease to exist as the time goes.The USA and Europe were once battlegrounds just like most countries that once had smaller warlords that kept machiavelling all the times. The the USA has many horrible sins but Pax Americana is a huge win in my opinion. I guess, local sociopaths are fighting their wars much more civilly when they don't dare to challenge higher powers, thus leaving people like artists, scientists, musicians, writers, kids, fathers, mothers etc. alone. I'm usually very worried when someone challenges the position of the US instead of the methods and wrongdoings of the US. It usually means a local warlord will rally huge amount of human resources(which are actually individuals, but not this time) in a bid for power.
Folcon 5y ago
What about smaller effects? I'm not saying don't work on large scale solutions, but figuring out / iterating on smaller scale problems could give useful information around where problems crop up and how to go about tackling them. Also trying to figure out what mechanisms are hard to individually subvert? I do sometimes think that people who spend time building competitive multiplayer games would have some useful input to these questions.
gameswithgo 5y ago
We can do plenty about it, kill the evil people, quit being a fucking pawn.
- dang 5y ago
  Posting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Perhaps you don't owe evil people better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  In addition to what dang said: Can you kill a bunch of them without you becoming evil? Are you sure?
  - manicdee 5y ago
    It’s very easy to not be evil, just define yourself to be good and thus any act that you perform is a necessary part of propagating good on the world. That you are questioning my status is evil by definition!
willcipriano 5y ago
> Power hungry people are always going to seek power, and they're always going to be better at it than people who aren't likewise driven. From this Republicanism draws it's power. The powerful want to rule over other people, so devide the nation into many small states, give each a leader and let the people choose where they want to live. This forces leaders to compete with each other for head count. These socal climbers are naturally competitive with one another so they will go to great lengths to gain more population. You have the benefits of a large country for things like national defence and natural disasters, but without the strong federal government that ends up homogenizing the states. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism
- hn_go_brrrrr 5y ago
  Intellectually, I enjoy the idea of the states competing as a free market, but the system has enough friction to prevent that being generally true in practice. For instance, it's very difficult to uproot your life and move to a different state. * Many people want to live near their family, and moving means either leaving them or convincing multiple other people to leave as well. * Most people won't be able to work remotely so they'll need a new job. * Moving means you won't see your friends in person so you need a new social circle. * Maybe you need to sell your house and buy a new one. The state has to to something pretty egregious to convince someone to move. It's not like switching brands of toothpaste.
  - lupire 5y ago
    yeah it's not a free market, but it is an "(semi-)independent laboratory" system where one state can try an idea and others may copy it if it works well.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    > Intellectually, I enjoy the idea of the states competing as a free market I believe one of the core value propositions of the state is addressing perverse incentives that emerge from competition. Untaxed externalities, for example. Due to race-to-the-bottom dynamics, "let's compete on the matter" is equivalent to "let's ignore the perverse incentives." Not great.
Swenrekcah 5y ago
I once thought about what would be the best way to fill the seats in a legislative body. My conclusion was that each person should get to choose up to two people from a randomly shuffled list of candidates. The list would be 2*N long where N=(num candidates/ num seats). That way everyone can carefully vet their choice if they so desire without being overwhelmed. Pandering to your base also becomes much less effective, unless perhaps the base is very large.
ABoredBirb 5y ago
See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition which appears to solve these problems and others.
z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
Expunge them of their power, status, and station, and probably purge them of their existence in this realm entirely. Then recreate the system in such a way to defend against such a vulnerability. There is no other way, we just need the will to do it.
- moltke 5y ago
  A number of people tried that in the 20th century with some pretty ugly results.
- imtringued 5y ago
  How about you just skip the expunge part and defend against the vulnerability with land value taxes and negative interest rates?

moltke 5y ago

This is why intact culture, and a moral imperative, are far more important than ideology. It's why "spreading democracy" by destroying culture and people results in worse outcomes.

lupire 5y ago
what does "intact culture" mean?
- Mezzie 5y ago
  I'd consider an intact culture to be one that's capable of transmitting its knowledge and traditions to the next generation, and one that permits some kind of social learning [1]: It should be possible for a child or novice in the culture to be able to figure out how they are expected to behave, consistent parameters should exist for interactions, etc. A broken culture in this case would be one which: - Lacks a next generation/dies out (e.g. the Shakers because of their disdain for sex) - There is a lack of agreement on foundational rules which make the culture impossible to enter, change, or expand (because the culture is crisis). Think managers giving you completely opposite instructions. One example would be say, attending the religious services of a friend/colleague. If the rules are clear and consistent and conveyed, it's possible to act in a respectful way. "This is how a Catholic wedding works." If you just have to guess what's offensive or what the taboos are, or you get contradicting answers, that's a broken culture. Even insular cultures need to teach children/new members, if they can't, they die. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_learning_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_learning_theory

mrtksn 5y ago

I'm not that pessimistic. If you notice, when structured properly, the previously blood shedding monarchs cease to exist as the time goes.The USA and Europe were once battlegrounds just like most countries that once had smaller warlords that kept machiavelling all the times. The the USA has many horrible sins but Pax Americana is a huge win in my opinion. I guess, local sociopaths are fighting their wars much more civilly when they don't dare to challenge higher powers, thus leaving people like artists, scientists, musicians, writers, kids, fathers, mothers etc. alone. I'm usually very worried when someone challenges the position of the US instead of the methods and wrongdoings of the US. It usually means a local warlord will rally huge amount of human resources(which are actually individuals, but not this time) in a bid for power.

Folcon 5y ago

What about smaller effects? I'm not saying don't work on large scale solutions, but figuring out / iterating on smaller scale problems could give useful information around where problems crop up and how to go about tackling them. Also trying to figure out what mechanisms are hard to individually subvert? I do sometimes think that people who spend time building competitive multiplayer games would have some useful input to these questions.

gameswithgo 5y ago

We can do plenty about it, kill the evil people, quit being a fucking pawn.

dang 5y ago
Posting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Perhaps you don't owe evil people better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
In addition to what dang said: Can you kill a bunch of them without you becoming evil? Are you sure?
- manicdee 5y ago
  It’s very easy to not be evil, just define yourself to be good and thus any act that you perform is a necessary part of propagating good on the world. That you are questioning my status is evil by definition!

willcipriano 5y ago

> Power hungry people are always going to seek power, and they're always going to be better at it than people who aren't likewise driven. From this Republicanism draws it's power. The powerful want to rule over other people, so devide the nation into many small states, give each a leader and let the people choose where they want to live. This forces leaders to compete with each other for head count. These socal climbers are naturally competitive with one another so they will go to great lengths to gain more population. You have the benefits of a large country for things like national defence and natural disasters, but without the strong federal government that ends up homogenizing the states. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism

hn_go_brrrrr 5y ago
Intellectually, I enjoy the idea of the states competing as a free market, but the system has enough friction to prevent that being generally true in practice. For instance, it's very difficult to uproot your life and move to a different state. * Many people want to live near their family, and moving means either leaving them or convincing multiple other people to leave as well. * Most people won't be able to work remotely so they'll need a new job. * Moving means you won't see your friends in person so you need a new social circle. * Maybe you need to sell your house and buy a new one. The state has to to something pretty egregious to convince someone to move. It's not like switching brands of toothpaste.
- lupire 5y ago
  yeah it's not a free market, but it is an "(semi-)independent laboratory" system where one state can try an idea and others may copy it if it works well.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  > Intellectually, I enjoy the idea of the states competing as a free market I believe one of the core value propositions of the state is addressing perverse incentives that emerge from competition. Untaxed externalities, for example. Due to race-to-the-bottom dynamics, "let's compete on the matter" is equivalent to "let's ignore the perverse incentives." Not great.

Swenrekcah 5y ago

I once thought about what would be the best way to fill the seats in a legislative body. My conclusion was that each person should get to choose up to two people from a randomly shuffled list of candidates. The list would be 2*N long where N=(num candidates/ num seats). That way everyone can carefully vet their choice if they so desire without being overwhelmed. Pandering to your base also becomes much less effective, unless perhaps the base is very large.

ABoredBirb 5y ago

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition which appears to solve these problems and others.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago

Expunge them of their power, status, and station, and probably purge them of their existence in this realm entirely. Then recreate the system in such a way to defend against such a vulnerability. There is no other way, we just need the will to do it.

moltke 5y ago
A number of people tried that in the 20th century with some pretty ugly results.
imtringued 5y ago
How about you just skip the expunge part and defend against the vulnerability with land value taxes and negative interest rates?