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“élites both consider citizens as sheep to be treated like any farming animals,” That’s pretty much the natural state of human society. It sometimes gets shake

“élites both consider citizens as sheep to be treated like any farming animals,” That’s pretty much the natural state of human society. It sometimes gets shaken up by wars or revolutions and slowly goes back to that state during peacetime.

kkfx 5y ago
Well, effectively looking at human history that's seems to be a common pattern, but since we have evolved from caves to the stars... I hope things might be different now that we can have far more wealthy people and far more people of culture than before. Surely a certain cohort of citizens will always be unable to improve much, that's part of natural selection, but the size and nature of such cohort vary, actual regimes, both westerns formal (not substantial) democracies and classic eastern/southern dictatorships seems to consider 99% of humans as farming animals... I have encountered various kind of people, some really hopeless by nature, and NOT necessary poor (just yesterday a friend, reasonably middle class, with a comfortable life and a nice job asked me what I think about a "revolutionary investment scheme", a classic Ponzi's one so badly presented even a little child smell the stench miles away) but others are just trapped in social organization while having a formal potential the society fails to let them develop. Nothing is perfect, of course, but from perfection to the actual state of things...........
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s about peoples ability. It’s more that leadership roles select for psychopathic and greedy traits so you almost never get leaders with empathy. Most normal people would never run for president or do what Musk does. They are happy to live a peaceful life. So you pretty much inevitably end up with crazy people on top.
  - kkfx 5y ago
    That's an interesting point: my view is not much abut "the bad vs the good élite" or how much percentage of bad/good élites incorporate or "who are the élite" but about why we have a certain pyramidal setup. In my view we all have different kind of people in a society, the bad, the good, the ugly and any intermix of them in between, the point is that nature can self-regulate the percentage of those toward stability so a Democratic society in the classic demos sense (demos does not means the working class/the poor but the People in the sense of those who are, feel to be Citizens, active in their community, participating etc) we do not need a pyramidal structure. The French Revolution divide a bit the power from all-into-one in few separated and that can't touch/interfere each others, we need perhaps just more subdivisions. Any of those surely have a kind of hierarchy but not with single subjects at the top nor with a very little oligarchy that rules on many others. Something much more like Renaissance society of the municipalities where there are competing powers, good and bag guys etc but a sufficiently subdivided power and crossed/contrasted interests that no one power can rule the others and the society keep changing at a certain peace, not issueless, for sure, but still in a turbulent but flourishing society. Those systems in the history have worked in many different times and societies but they never last long, pushing toward too much resource usages and polarization, culture IMVO can compensate. In the past culture, basic ones eh, not all PhDs, was expensive, now can be cheap and easy to be accessed enough for nearly all. The quid I miss is how in the past when those kind of society start can start out of an age of darkness?
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Yes. Large powerblocks will eventually go to war in very horrible and extremely large wars, but smaller powerblocks will go to war almost constantly in small but no less horrible wars. Both are bad, the one is bad every 50 years or so and then millions of people die the other kills millions of people over the same period. We need better ways to govern or we'll end up killing the species one day.
      - kkfx 5y ago
        Both are bad and when some crisis happen, some endogenous (economy devastated by few profiteers, for instance), some exogenous (like depletion of natural resources) they are the most classic response to save ruling class in position and sometimes in skin, but at least a small scale war provoke small scale damage for humanity at a whole, people who can/who anticipate the war can flee on time etc, to a certain extent they might even be a means of evolutionary selection of humanity. Large wars consume and pollute too much, with nukes that means potentially species-killing destruction etc Even more dangerous things happen when the war is not a ruling class means to survive BUT just a business or mostly a business, that's why IMVHO private A/N&D companies should just exists for small weapons for civilians and nothing more. The rest should be a State-only production always kept but so expensive that a war is chosen only as extrema ratio. Private companies can only participate aside like providing steel etc to the State, BUT that at a fixed and low price high enough to avoid making companies failing but low enough that's not a profit even in a deep bear market case.
    - spaetzleesser 5y ago
      Also don’t forget that a well run dictatorship produces superior outcomes vs a bottom up democracy. The dictatorship will be much faster and agile in its decision making. The problem with dictatorships that they often stop being well run after a while.
      - kkfx 5y ago
        What outcome? In innovation, thanks to public research for military reasons yes, most common modern tech was born from nazi research in WWII but I doubt some consider even initial phase of nazism a good thing. We do not live to be efficient, to innovate, to produce goods etc: we live to live, we work because it's needed to live well and in various cases is also a pleasure to a certain extent, but definitively not the contrary. Quality of life on any individual is the outcome IMVHO not the rest. Even if nazi research pushed infrared, new way to survive in cold waters, rockets, many various maritime, aviation and generic mechanical innovation who now and not only from now have produced good things for us those who have build them do not have any pleasure from them, so the outcome is still negative. Working to left something good behind is good, but not at the price of ruining or dedicate a life for that purpose.

kkfx 5y ago

Well, effectively looking at human history that's seems to be a common pattern, but since we have evolved from caves to the stars... I hope things might be different now that we can have far more wealthy people and far more people of culture than before. Surely a certain cohort of citizens will always be unable to improve much, that's part of natural selection, but the size and nature of such cohort vary, actual regimes, both westerns formal (not substantial) democracies and classic eastern/southern dictatorships seems to consider 99% of humans as farming animals... I have encountered various kind of people, some really hopeless by nature, and NOT necessary poor (just yesterday a friend, reasonably middle class, with a comfortable life and a nice job asked me what I think about a "revolutionary investment scheme", a classic Ponzi's one so badly presented even a little child smell the stench miles away) but others are just trapped in social organization while having a formal potential the society fails to let them develop. Nothing is perfect, of course, but from perfection to the actual state of things...........

spaetzleesser 5y ago
I don’t think it’s about peoples ability. It’s more that leadership roles select for psychopathic and greedy traits so you almost never get leaders with empathy. Most normal people would never run for president or do what Musk does. They are happy to live a peaceful life. So you pretty much inevitably end up with crazy people on top.
- kkfx 5y ago
  That's an interesting point: my view is not much abut "the bad vs the good élite" or how much percentage of bad/good élites incorporate or "who are the élite" but about why we have a certain pyramidal setup. In my view we all have different kind of people in a society, the bad, the good, the ugly and any intermix of them in between, the point is that nature can self-regulate the percentage of those toward stability so a Democratic society in the classic demos sense (demos does not means the working class/the poor but the People in the sense of those who are, feel to be Citizens, active in their community, participating etc) we do not need a pyramidal structure. The French Revolution divide a bit the power from all-into-one in few separated and that can't touch/interfere each others, we need perhaps just more subdivisions. Any of those surely have a kind of hierarchy but not with single subjects at the top nor with a very little oligarchy that rules on many others. Something much more like Renaissance society of the municipalities where there are competing powers, good and bag guys etc but a sufficiently subdivided power and crossed/contrasted interests that no one power can rule the others and the society keep changing at a certain peace, not issueless, for sure, but still in a turbulent but flourishing society. Those systems in the history have worked in many different times and societies but they never last long, pushing toward too much resource usages and polarization, culture IMVO can compensate. In the past culture, basic ones eh, not all PhDs, was expensive, now can be cheap and easy to be accessed enough for nearly all. The quid I miss is how in the past when those kind of society start can start out of an age of darkness?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Yes. Large powerblocks will eventually go to war in very horrible and extremely large wars, but smaller powerblocks will go to war almost constantly in small but no less horrible wars. Both are bad, the one is bad every 50 years or so and then millions of people die the other kills millions of people over the same period. We need better ways to govern or we'll end up killing the species one day.
    - kkfx 5y ago
      Both are bad and when some crisis happen, some endogenous (economy devastated by few profiteers, for instance), some exogenous (like depletion of natural resources) they are the most classic response to save ruling class in position and sometimes in skin, but at least a small scale war provoke small scale damage for humanity at a whole, people who can/who anticipate the war can flee on time etc, to a certain extent they might even be a means of evolutionary selection of humanity. Large wars consume and pollute too much, with nukes that means potentially species-killing destruction etc Even more dangerous things happen when the war is not a ruling class means to survive BUT just a business or mostly a business, that's why IMVHO private A/N&D companies should just exists for small weapons for civilians and nothing more. The rest should be a State-only production always kept but so expensive that a war is chosen only as extrema ratio. Private companies can only participate aside like providing steel etc to the State, BUT that at a fixed and low price high enough to avoid making companies failing but low enough that's not a profit even in a deep bear market case.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    Also don’t forget that a well run dictatorship produces superior outcomes vs a bottom up democracy. The dictatorship will be much faster and agile in its decision making. The problem with dictatorships that they often stop being well run after a while.
    - kkfx 5y ago
      What outcome? In innovation, thanks to public research for military reasons yes, most common modern tech was born from nazi research in WWII but I doubt some consider even initial phase of nazism a good thing. We do not live to be efficient, to innovate, to produce goods etc: we live to live, we work because it's needed to live well and in various cases is also a pleasure to a certain extent, but definitively not the contrary. Quality of life on any individual is the outcome IMVHO not the rest. Even if nazi research pushed infrared, new way to survive in cold waters, rockets, many various maritime, aviation and generic mechanical innovation who now and not only from now have produced good things for us those who have build them do not have any pleasure from them, so the outcome is still negative. Working to left something good behind is good, but not at the price of ruining or dedicate a life for that purpose.